


Saorsa - A story in twelve Quidditch bets

by hippocrates460, hpwlwbb



Series: Lasair [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Fits with Canon, PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Resistance, Sex, Some homophobia/transphobia/biphobia, background/implied harry potter/severus snape, mention of past child abuse, secrecy, wartime recollections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-04-06 05:56:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19056586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippocrates460/pseuds/hippocrates460, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hpwlwbb/pseuds/hpwlwbb
Summary: “You know,” Minerva says, when she’s lying on the bed, mostly naked, and Rolanda is sitting on her, kissing her face. “I have tickets for the cross-country race. I know it’s not Quidditch, but I’ll bet Krum will win.”“You still owe me thirty Galleons for the last match, McGonagall,” Rolanda says, “finish one bet before you make another, please.”---Where Rolanda and Minerva love Quidditch and each other, and figure out their secrets together.





	Saorsa - A story in twelve Quidditch bets

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Lilian, for the beta (and endless relentless support, kindness and late-night talks). Thank you [Arty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tpants) and [Saulaie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saulaie), for jumping in and making gorgeous art. Thank you mods for organizing, and for being helpful and wonderful.
> 
>  **Artists' Mediums/Notes:**  
> [saulaie](https://saulaie.tumblr.com) (tumblr) medium: digital art  
> saulaie notes: A pleasure to pinch-hit and get to draw the two epic ladies in love that are Minerva and Rolanda!  
> [Tpants/Arty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tpants/pseuds/Tpants) (AO3) | [artymakeart](https://artymakeart.tumblr.com) (tumblr)
> 
> Alternative subtitle:  
> “Most of us probably feel we couldn’t be free without newspapers, and that is the real reason we want newspapers to be free.”  
> \- Edward R. Murrow

####  **Prologue**

“Be quiet,” Minerva hisses, and Rolanda glares at her, then bites her neck. Minerva can’t stop the whine that feels like it’s been trapped in her throat for weeks, maybe months even, from escaping, and so Rolanda clasps her hand over Minerva’s mouth. It leaves her pinned against the wall, stuck between ancient stone and Rolanda’s rolling body, her radiating heat. It’s a dusty little alcove and right now it feels a little damp with their arousal.

“Do it,” Rolanda whispers in her ear, and she seals the deal with a lick. Minerva can’t stop her hips moving, but she can sneak a hand through the gap between buttons into Rolanda’s trousers, and then further down. Rolanda gasps and moans, and licks her neck and ear, and Minerva can barely move, her mouth still covered by a strong hand, Rolanda keeping her still with her full weight. She holds her hand in place and lets the pressure, the desperate kissing, do most of the work. When Rolanda bites at her lip she gasps and –

They both hear it at the same time, and Rolanda steps away immediately, as far as she can without climbing out from behind the statue, to button up her robes. Footsteps. It’s four in the morning and the only other person on duty tonight is Snape. _Headmaster_ Snape. They see him slide past through the gap between the wall and the statue, and don’t breathe until he’s well and truly gone.

The burning need they felt for each other not minutes ago suddenly feels like an indulgence from a past life. Rolanda seems to feel it too. She leaves first, and Minerva takes a few more minutes to catch her breath and perhaps not look so dishevelled. When she checks the corridor before going back to her rooms, it’s empty.

 

 

> #####  **25 MORE MUGGLES DEAD IN REIGN OF TERROR**
> 
> _December 6_ _th_ _, 1997 – By Sparrow_
> 
> The recent murder and bloodlust of You-Know-Who and his compatriots has once again spread to the most innocent in this war; Muggles and their children.
> 
> By eyewitness accounts, a group of Muggles on a Muggle device called ‘tourbus’ accidentally seem to have made it through the anti-Muggle wards surrounding one of You-Know-Who’s strongholds, on the 5th of December. All Muggles, including two children under the age of 10, were found dead hours after they were declared missing. Muggles are referring to the tragedy as ‘an unfortunate gas leak’ which the former chair of the Muggle Liaison Office, Engelbert Thornstock, tells us is a common expression of grief.
> 
> This slaughter brings the death count of You-Know-Who’s lackeys to twenty-eight in December, already more than November, and so we repeat again: Stay safe. Stay safe, those who are at risk. Stay safe, those who are responsible for others who are at risk. Fight, harder, stronger, _better_ , the rest of you. He was defeated by Harry Potter before, and this time we cannot allow a child to do our dirty work for us. Defend the weak, the innocent, and destroy the enemy.
> 
> As always, if you do not know where to begin, contact Saorsa per returning owl (do not attempt to track it, please, for your sake and ours, the clean-up is horrible) to request asylum, aid, or tools to commit to defending our nation and its values.
> 
> Tonight’s tragic news follows yesterday’s evidence of the infiltration of the Wizengamot, which means whoever did this will under the current leadership of the Ministry not be brought to justice. The latest laws instated by the Wizengamot are not overtly blood-purism fanatical yet, according to reporting by the _Daily Prophet_ , but as always, we will comb through the detailed information when they become publicly accessible. The failure of the Wizengamot as a whole to respond to the crisis Wizarding Britain is in, however, has been clueing many of us in for months as to where their loyalties lie. The recent disregard of real-life events may sound ironic, considering he Wizengamot’s motto of _ignorantia juris neminem excusat._ Nevertheless, we believe that justice and law are not synonyms, and we will continue to fight for justice.

####  **ONE**

The first match after the war is awkward for everyone. Rolanda flies around and keeps catching glimpses of the castle, parts of it still in ruin. The children are not feeling the match, and the teams have noticeable gaps. The energy of the game is off, and her attention drifts.

When Rolanda finally lets herself look down at the stands, she sees Minerva using a copy of Saorsa to support a sheet of parchment that she’s scribbling on. She knows what the cover says. Where the _Daily Prophet_ claims victory and celebration, and the Quibbler is still rebuilding their presses, Saorsa writes of trials and uncountable losses. It helps, that Minerva uses that as a background for what looks from far away like a figure flying, bent low over a broomstick for speed.

She remembers the drawings Minerva had given her just last week over breakfast, the ones that have since been framed and are now hanging on the wall next to Rolanda’s bed. Part of her had expected to be asked where she’d gone off to, fearing Minerva might demand information she has never been willing to share. Instead, Minerva wanted to give her some of the joy she herself had felt while on the walk they should have been on together, pointing out the landscape, the scraggly remains of a castle, the ancient rock formations.

She vows she won’t leave Minerva half-way through a long-anticipated hike ever again, then has to chase down a Chaser who has been flying in small circles for a strangely long time to make sure he didn’t get hit by a Beater.

Ravenclaw wins, and the stands are empty again after a few minutes. Rolanda lands next to the teachers’ stands and sits down next to Minerva.

“Well,” she says, after a beat of silence. “That was depressing.”

“It’ll get better,” Rolanda promises. She knows Minerva knows it too, she was there the last time too, after all, so it surprises her when Minerva smiles at her, warm and grateful. It makes her skin tingle, to know her words affect Minerva so.

“You lost, you know,” she elbows Rolanda gently and something dangerous in her stomach swoops. “I’ll take my ten galleons now.”

“I’ll get you next time,” Rolanda promises. Tries on a smile.

They walk back to the castle together, and Rolanda makes a comment about how they’ll see each other at dinner right before ducking into the corridor that leads to her rooms. She’s pretty sure no one but Albus Dumbledore ever even knew where her rooms were, and intends to keep it that way. Even when Minerva looks at her like that, disappointment in the tightness of her mouth as she says goodbye.

It's not like they’re anything to each other, Rolanda tells herself, eating up the corridors and hallways in long strides. They don’t owe each other parts of their lives, Minerva is her own person, and so is Rolanda. It’s better like this, it’s been like this for so long, it’s unlikely to change.

She changes for dinner quickly, efficiently, barely aware of the things she does without thinking until her eye catches the drawings. They really are beautiful.

####  *******

“Meet me on the third floor?” Minerva asks Rolanda, and Rolanda nods. They didn’t use to sit next to each other, but since new people had to be hired after the war and everything was changing anyway, she asked Rolanda to keep close. Which she had, without question.

Rolanda always leaves first, that’s how they do it. Minerva is the cat, she’s better at finding which corner Rolanda chose to hide in, but today she eats slowly, chats with the people that sit to her right, away from Minerva, about inconsequential things.

“Did you change your mind?” Minerva asks, and Rolanda shakes no. Minerva is about to scream with frustration when a finger touches the side of her knee, then settles heavily on top of her leg. Rolanda keeps talking to the new Divination professor, like nothing happened. The Divination professor either is not as open in the third eye as they claim to be, or they are pretending not to notice. Trying to distract herself from the hand on her thigh, Minerva thinks of the new professor, who has officially been hired temporarily while Sybil recovers from her drinking. Minerva knows she’s not the only one quietly hoping she’ll stay away.

Every time she feels the urge to just go, sod the spectacular sex that she’s been hoping for for days of too many classes and patrols and duties, Rolanda moves her hand up a little more, setting off a whole swarm of butterflies in Minerva’s stomach. When the twist of Rolanda’s arm threatens to overstretch her elbow, she doesn’t hurry up, but instead excuses herself and leans over to the other side, to talk to Severus, past Minerva who sits between them. Minerva is blushing, she feels hot, she wants to leave, and it’s not like they’d be missing out by skipping dessert, it’s not like Rolanda can’t talk to Severus about bloody Quidditch and bloody team practice and sodding – Rolanda squeezes her leg and Minerva forces herself to lean back into her seat. To hold her mug with two shaking hands while her face starts to burn.

When Rolanda finally leaves, with a wicked evil grin, Minerva stays to chat to Pomona for a while, for revenge a bit, before following Rolanda. She smells her before she sees her, clean air and rosemary.

“What do I owe you again?” Rolanda says, already kissing Minerva’s neck.

“An orgasm!” Minerva complains, but then she laughs. “Ten galleons,” Minerva squirms into the kissing, “stop that, it tickles.” Rolanda doesn’t let off, and Minerva pushes her against the far wall of the empty and warded classroom. It’s not so late in the year yet that it’s dark out after dinner, and dust dances around in the pink light of the sunset. “Pay me back later,” she hisses, when hands slip through her robes and hold her around her waist, “fuck me first. Merlin and Cersei what the hell was that?”

“You want it here?” Rolanda teases, yellow eyes shining, “against the wall? Or over the desk? Should I not have touched you during dinner?”

“Anywhere,” Minerva whines, loving how she’s being pulled in, loving the way Rolanda picks her up and settles her on an old creaky desk. “Anything,” she promises, wanting Rolanda to know that she might complain but really she loved the anticipation building.

Rolanda fishes around in her pocket and finds a shrunken harness and dildo. She holds out her hand for Minerva to tap with her wand, once to unshrink, once to clean, once for lubrication. Her skirts and robes are hiked up, her legs spread as far as they go, her breath is hitching already, and Rolanda leans over for some more kissing, to slowly push in. They grope and kiss at each other while Rolanda fucks into Minerva with slow steady strokes, until Minerva’s legs get sore and her voice gets hoarse from _faster, harder, come on Ro_.

Rolanda helps her up, turns her around with a kiss, bends her over the desk. Folds up skirts and robes with reverence and traces the curves of Minerva’s hips, kisses her lower back and squeezes when she pushes back in.

“Come closer,” Minerva demands, and Rolanda leans in, close enough to kiss Minerva’s shoulder, draped over her back. “Can you come like this? Fucking me?”

“Absolutely,” Rolanda promises, showing her with a speeding of her pace. “What about you?”

“Going to need your hand too,” Minerva tells her, and then groans when Rolanda teases and then holds her hand in place, the movement of the dildo enough stimulation for her to tense and whine and curl her back in, not as satisfying as when she is a cat, but pretty good regardless. She comes when Rolanda does, because of the stuttering movements of the hard unmalleable dildo inside of her. Cries loud enough when she does that she’s grateful for the bubble of protective silence she’d set up around them.

She feels hollow when Rolanda leaves, with a quick fond kiss to the corner of her mouth, and decides that the time for this is over. Minerva is confident, and she is tenacious, and she is worthy of Rolanda’s complete attention. Or so she tells herself when she settles her skirts back down and tries to get her legs to stop shaking for long enough to stand like a real person, and then to walk to her rooms like a confident, tenacious, worthy adult. Never mind the looks Mrs Norris gives her.

 

 

> #####  **CORRUPTION IN THE MINISTRY OF MAGIC – WHEN DOES IT END?**
> 
> _November 15_ _th_ _, 1998 – By Sparrow_
> 
> As the trials for those who sided with Tom Riddle (also known as Voldemort) during the war continue, one thing jumps out. Among the 47 trials conducted up to this point, almost 80% (36) concerned people working for the Ministry of Magic. These wizards and witches were respected members of the community before the war, and have since become disgraced as their distasteful actions are revealed. Although the charges range from corruption to unethical behaviour to use of Unspeakable Curses with intent to kill, it seems unlikely any department in the Ministry will show to have been clean when the trials are over. These figures do not even include the use of Imperius, which may have had even further-reaching effects.
> 
> At the redaction of Saorsa, these figures make us wonder about the court of law, and the proceedings of justice. How many of the members of the Wizengamot, effectively above the law through their position and status, should be the ones tried for crimes against Muggles and wizards alike during the last four years?
> 
> We have written about the corruptions in the Ministry before (turn to page 4 for a summary of our articles throughout this war and the one before) and the role the Wizengamot played in permitting and enabling it. As you know, the Wizengamot has to approve any Minister before they can be instated. When Thicknesse became the Minister of Magic, this was of course due to his being under the influence of the Imperius curse. It is debatable whether the Wizengamot could have been able to prevent this. What is not debatable however, and what is often forgotten, is that Pius Thicknesse was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement before he became the Minister of Magic. In this position he made several grievous errors, and failed to follow through on Madame Bones’ plans, despite his position being a temporary one. He should have been more rigorously questioned by the Wizengamot on his actions while Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Instead he was instated with no push-back from within the Wizengamot, which was the only institution that had any power in preventing a corrupt or unfit official from taking office after the competition was brutally murdered. The example of Thicknesse, and those instances outlined in the summary on page 4, show us that we are right to worry about the impartial nature of the Wizengamot during this war and the last. After all, even their stated position of neutrality should be a point to consider. As famous historian and poet Dante Alighiere said: “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”

####  **TWO**

“You just can’t stand not winning,” Severus teases. It’s been a year or so since the war ended and he’s starting to relax a little around his colleagues again. It doesn’t help at all that the castle refuses to let anyone act as headmaster while Severus is still alive. Minerva often catches him staring at Slughorn, pure unsubtle envy in his scowl.

“They were cheating,” she complains, and Severus bites down on a snort.

“They’re Hufflepuffs.”

You can’t argue with that logic, so for a while they both quietly stare at the stands emptying out, people chatting and cheering and laughing everywhere. It’s becoming easy on days like these to almost forget there was ever a war at all.

“Did you at least win your bet with Rolanda?” Severus asks, while standing up and smoothing down his robes. Minerva blinks at him, she hadn’t realized other people knew they had a standing bet. They tend to celebrate victories and defeats in private ways.

“Yes,” she says finally, “I was smart enough to bet on who’d catch the Snitch, rather than who’d win, with her.”

He gives her a little nod and walks away.

That night in Minerva’s sitting room, over a glass of truly excellent whisky, Minerva complains about Severus. “He must’ve had something to do with the booking of the field.”

“You do recall Slytherin lost, don’t you?” Rolanda laughs, holding her glass out for a refill that Minerva would give no one but her. Most people have to be grateful with what they’re given, in her rooms.

“Yes,” she says, “but the way the team played together – ”

“Ah, come on,” Rolanda is still laughing, “you know there’s more than one way to destroy a Doxy.”

“The team, the skill, the tools,” Minerva sighs, “I know that! But there has to be some element of...”

“Magic,” Rolanda suggests, not laughing anymore, but with a wide, indulgent grin. Yellow eyes shining.

“Yes!” Minerva says, pointing her way eagerly. “Greater than the sum of its parts!”

“I’ll drink to that,” Rolanda smiles, holding out her glass.

“ _Slàinte,_ ” Minerva taps her glass to Rolanda’s.

Rolanda winks and says it back: “ _Slàinte_.” Accentless. It takes Minerva far too long to process.

“You?”

“Raised on Lewis and Harris,” she says, with a wry smile. “I’m fluent.”

“I never knew,” Minerva sinks back into her chair, contemplating her drink. There is so much she doesn’t know about Rolanda.

“It wasn’t like that,” Rolanda says, soft and gentle, like she expects Minerva to be upset. She’s not upset, it wasn’t like that. But maybe now it could be, she thinks, and resolve settles deeper in her spine. Complete attention should come with knowing things about each other.

“German too right?” Minerva asks, when they’ve been quiet for a while. Rolanda nods and stands. Straightens out her robes with a swipe of her hand. “Oh come on,” Minerva whines, sorry to have pushed, sitting up too. “I’ll stop it with the questions. Stay awhile, I was hoping for a bath.”

Rolanda turns her head to the door and then back to Minerva, decides so fast it seems like she never really intended to leave. “You can have your bath when I’m gone.” She kneels in front of her chair in one smooth movement, pushes Minerva’s robes and gently bites at her thighs until Minerva is close to screaming. Eventually she can’t take it anymore, she pushes Rolanda’s face away to take off her underwear.

“Oh you’re done?” Rolanda laughs, eyes crinkled with joy. “Should I leave?”

“Fuck you,” Minerva says, grabbing at her shoulders to pull her closer again. Rolanda works her way up her aching thighs with gentle featherlight kisses until Minerva is begging, “fuck fuck please, Rolanda, please please I need to come please.”

Rolanda blows air across her aching hot wet – sucks, hard. Minerva screams until she’s raw, two fingers deep inside, yellow eyes never leaving her face.

Minerva falls asleep that night thinking about how Rolanda never shows her anything real. She’ll hide her face when she comes (biting Minerva’s shoulder, arms wrapped around her face, turning onto her stomach) and shakes off emotion with angry precision. She doesn’t get naked, doesn’t tell Minerva where she goes when she leaves, and when her eyes are red and her voice hoarse in the morning, she blames it on a cold. As if Minerva doesn’t know her, as if she doesn’t know her own heart, as if she wouldn’t recognize grief.

####  *******

It takes Rolanda by surprise the next day when Severus Snape of all people tells her he’s sorry she lost her bet. She thought it was a secret. The way she looks at him must tell him something she didn’t intend to communicate, because he backs off, a little pale, where before he had been as open and friendly as Snape ever gets.

Poor Snape, she thinks, and she tries to talk to Minerva about it. “Did you tell Snape about the bet?” But she’s still thrown off enough that it comes out hostile.

“Was it supposed to be a secret?” Minerva asks, displeasure in her frown. “The bets, I mean,” they have talked about the rest of it staying a secret and they are on the same page with that at least. No need to tell anyone about what isn’t even a proper relationship.

“No,” Rolanda says, trying not to sound paranoid. Trying not to give away how long she had to be paranoid for, keeping her cloak of clueless schoolteacher wrapped tight around herself. “No, just didn’t expect it.”

“Me either,” Minerva says, looking over at Snape, who’s striding across the Great Hall on his way to lunch. “He’s an observant little bugger isn’t he?”

Rolanda glares up at her, and it makes Minerva laugh. The tightness in her chest eases a bit. “Little,” she says, dripping with sarcasm, and the air between them feels clear again. Really she just hadn’t quite been prepared for people noticing her when she’s done so well hiding for so long.

She leans in over Minerva when Snape sits down, and he nods, shows nothing with hundreds of eyes on him.

“I thought it was a secret how much better Minerva is at predicting Quidditch matches than me,” she says, grinning wide to show she means it, and Snape brightens up too, he sits a little taller.

“Your secret is safe with me,” he says.

Minerva talks to her, the whole way through dinner, and it makes Rolanda feel wrong-footed. Normally they flitter about a bit, talking in different configurations, about different things, but today Minerva asks her questions about her classes, her teaching, her teams, the whole evening. Did she miss something?

“Is everything alright?” She asks when they leave together, another unusual event. Minerva shakes no before saying goodbye to her where Rolanda has to turn with a squeeze to her elbow, that Rolanda somehow feels for the rest of the night. She checks multiple times if she has a bruise or a mark that might make her elbow feel somehow changed, but there’s nothing to be seen. No reason for it to feel like this at all.

The next day is a Sunday and both Minerva and Rolanda want to leave the castle badly enough to beg Flitwick to take over Minerva’s patrolling duties for the day.

“Wait,” Minerva says, like she’s had a sudden flash of insight when they’re deep into a very long hike, and have both been quietly enjoying the views for a while now. It’s always easier to breathe away from things.

“What is it?” Rolanda asks, waiting in the middle of the path as she was told, hoping they won’t have to go back for something Minerva’d forgotten about.

“No, sorry, we can keep moving.” Minerva takes her over and they get back to their previous pace. Steady and even. “I was just thinking that you don’t like it when I draw you.”

“Mm,” Rolanda hums, not wanting to commit.

“But you don’t like pictures either, do you?” Minerva says, excited by her discovery. Rolanda turns to grin at her. “You’re not in any of the staff photos.”

“I’m in two,” Rolanda corrects, “I didn’t have any excuses those years and I didn’t want to make anyone suspicious.”

“So I’m right,” Minerva chews thoughtfully on her thumb. “But why?”

“You could ask,” Rolanda says, feeling her eyes crinkle.

“I could,” Minerva smiles back, bumps their shoulders against each other. “But where’s the fun in that?” It feels strange, to hear her say that, and Rolanda jerks back a little. Minerva notices, of course she does, and she takes Rolanda’s hand. “Joking,” she whispers. “Please would you tell me why you don’t like being in pictures or drawings?”

“Had to be careful,” Rolanda tells her, the cold feeling leaving her spine. “I’ve been in a lot of wars. Didn’t want people to know where I was. Didn’t want to make it easy to puzzle my routine together.” Paranoia, she can hear Minerva think it. It’s not the whole truth either.

“And?” Minerva prods, because of course she does.

“I look like my mother,” Rolanda admits. And that Minerva understands. Rolanda is older now that her mother ever will be, has been for a while. She intertwines her fingers with Rolanda’s and changes the subject to the things they see around them. Rolanda breathes in and out, deep and slow. Grateful.

When they make it to the highlight of the hike, they both sit down, and Minerva unpacks her sketchbook and the food they’d packed. Long legs stretched out to catch some sun, Minerva flashes through the sketchbook, looking for a blank page. Rolanda sees herself, high up and bird-like in her attention to what is happening all around. Not for the first time. When she goes through some of her older drawings, about half of them are free clear skies and Rolanda a blur across the page. This is from the hike Rolanda had missed, tall rocks looking like petrified trees. It’s obvious which drawings Minerva likes by how she soothes her hand over them, before skipping on to where she was working on one of Rolanda bent over deep, gathering speed. Rolanda can’t help but notice how she tried to focus on the broomstick, the Quidditch stands, and how pale sunken faces, empty eyes all around, the complete lack of joy in the crowd when a point is scored, had still creeped in.

“It is getting better,” Minerva says, a little hoarse when she comes to the same realization Rolanda had. And she’s right, the newer drawings have a brighter feel to them, and they look at each other for a long moment, before Minerva breaks away to draw the view, starting from the sea in the distance. Rolanda takes a moment to recover, then lies back in the deep grass and gets started on her sandwich.

 

 

> #####  **SEVERUS SNAPE – HEADMASTER PERFORCE**
> 
> _June 14_ _th_ _, 2000 – By Hawk._
> 
> As the wizarding world discovered during the first of many trials in the early summer of 1998, Headmaster Severus Snape spent most of both wars, as well as the interbellum, as a spy for Dumbledore. During this time he gathered invaluable information and made many impossible decisions for the good of the Wizarding World.
> 
> What is less widely knows, is his struggle with the position given to him be Headmaster Dumbledore and Voldemort alike, that he continues to hold – the position of Headmaster of Hogwarts.
> 
> Your reporter met with Headmaster Snape at an undisclosed location to speak of Magic older than Hogwarts, what it means to be free to choose your own destiny, and how to build a life in the ruins of a war.
> 
> (Image description: Headmaster Snape with Harry Potter, after receiving his Order of Merlin, First Class)
> 
> “I see it this way,” Headmaster Snape says, soon after sitting down and accepting a glass of wine. “I made mistakes. Some of them because I did not have all the information I needed, others knowing full well what the consequence could or might be. This life that I did not choose, it can be my penance.”
> 
> We talk of sin, and the way Muggle culture, in which Headmaster Snape grew up, centralizes sin in their religions. “Not all religions,” Headmaster Snape corrects me, “but mine, absolutely.”
> 
> He straightens a necklace he wears, and winces when he touches his still-sore skin. During the Battle of Hogwarts, Headmaster Snape was attacked by Voldemort through his snake Nagini, which left its mark on his neck. He explains about the pains that plague him, and the research he has done to improve his own care, which he gives to St. Mungo’s for free, so that anyone suffering a similar fate might find relief also.
> 
> “Hogwarts chose me,” he says of his position as Headmaster at the school, “possibly because Professor Dumbledore chose me first, but as I learn more about the school, I find that the old magics are hard to unravel. Sometimes I question whether it is my place as a mortal wizard to doubt something so much vaster and more powerful than me.” He explains with glittering eyes the dead ends he has come across in his quest to understand why his position could not belong to another. The things he has learned by finding these dead ends.
> 
> (Image description: Headmaster Snape giving last years’ start of term address to new students arriving at Hogwarts. In the foreground stand yet-to-be-sorted first year students.)
> 
> “Is this what you do for fun then,” I ask, “research?” and Headmaster Snape laughs.
> 
> “Occasionally I fly,” he tells me, like he is imparting some great secret. “I am particularly fond of flying in the rain. It makes me feel free.”
> 
> “Do you often feel free?” I ask, and he tilts his head in a thoughtful manner.
> 
> “Almost all the time,” he tells me. “It is a new experience for me, one that I have not yet gotten used to. But despite my initial wish to pass on my position to my very capable Deputy Headmistress [Minerva McGonagall, professor of Transfiguration at Hogwarts, red.] I now feel that the burden I’ve been given frees me to find creative ways to accomplish the goals I have set for myself.”
> 
> We have finished our meals, by this point, but stay seated to find the answer to one more question: “What are your goals?”
> 
> “Happiness,” he says, his tone serious and even, “for me and others. For those I am responsible for to be better, do better, and live better than I have. For them to suffer less.”
> 
> I pay the bill, and we shake hands before he leaves. From the way he smiles and nods, I fear he may have learned something about me during this conversation that I will never know I taught him. Like he saw right through me. Headmaster Snape has that effect on people.

####  **THREE**

Rolanda holds her breath all the way up to Minerva’s quarters, just so she can let all her emotion out in one rush. “I bloody well hate students,” Rolanda sighs, cranky and pained. She’s cold and hungry, and everything hurts. “Why do they have to be so bloody mean?”

“And stupid,” Minerva says, not looking up from her grading. Rolanda is just about to say that _stupid_ is hardly a character flaw, when Minerva holds up an exam she’s grading. “They all skipped question two somehow!”

“Was it on the back of the page?” Rolanda stretches and settles, knows she’ll be tossed out on her arse soon if she doesn’t get on with her shower, willing to risk it for just another minute of peace.

“I wrote the questions on the blackboard,” Minerva sighs, nostrils flaring in despair. “It wasn’t even particularly hard, I think. I doubt they skipped it on purpose.”

“Bring it up during the next class,” Rolanda suggests, “there might be a good reason.”

“You’re better than me,” Minerva decides, with a firm nod, still flipping through sheets of parchment. “Have you seen my green quill?”

“In the teachers’ lounge,” Rolanda says without thinking. “The left bookcase, probably the new Defence teacher, he’s a magpie for shiny things, but he always feels guilty after a day or two.” She has her eyes closed at this point, too bone-weary to do much of anything, but she opens them back up when Minerva is eerily quiet. “What?”

“You’re amazing,” Minerva says, and that spurs Rolanda into action. Showertime.

“So what happened?” Minerva asks Rolanda’s shoulder when they’re both getting beaten up by a hot and steamy stream of water. Rolanda has never met anyone that has the same opinion on showers as she does and it feels somehow more telling than any other aspect of their relationship, that they should both enjoy the exact same type of shower.

“The Ravenclaws,” she says, leaning into Minerva. “There’s always some kids that try to make the team just because they think it’ll be less time-consuming than class.”

“Did someone actually manage this year?”

“Yeah, Samantha Moore,” Rolanda remembers the shaking lip of the second year when they went over the training schedule together. “I don’t know what to tell her. It’ll be good for her, she’s talented, and it might do her well to get out of her mind a bit from time to time.”

“It’s always worse for the young ones too,” Minerva understands so well, it helps. “They miss all the basics so they have to learn those on top of not disappointing the team.”

“She can’t even do a loop-the-loop yet.”

“If you want me to talk to her...” Minerva offers, in a tone that says Rolanda doesn’t even need to say no thanks. She means it, but she won’t be offended if Rolanda doesn’t take her up on it. They finish rinsing off, and then as one, they move on to the bedroom.

“You’re sure?” Rolanda teases, when they’re sprawled out across the covers, a little while later, and Minerva laughs, hoarse and throaty. If Rolanda wasn’t old and tired, that laugh could’ve gotten her going again. It might still, with the way Minerva’s eyes are shining.

“Yes,” she promises, “my Gryffindors have got this.”

She tries to get up and a clammy hand stops her. Minerva gives her an intense look that Rolanda understands immediately. So she nods. Decides she wouldn’t mind to wake up to a warm body in the morning at all.

“Arse crack of dawn,” she warns, and Minerva shrugs.

“At least we’ll suffer together.”

They get under the covers, close together. Comfortable and naked. Rolanda feels Minerva grow slow and heavy but can’t shake off her own unease. She blinks at the ceiling.

“You’re safe here,” Minerva whispers, smoothing a gentle hand down Rolanda’s side. Nothing to be said to that. Rolanda leans in for a kiss, and ends up sleeping rather well.

The next morning, she wakes up as promised at the first hint of dawn. She stretches, leaving Minerva to groan and bury herself deeper into the covers, and her eye catches on something she must have seen before. She just never noticed.

In a beautiful silver frame, right on the bedside table. Minerva, at not even fifty, her black-and-grey hair in a complicated updo and a long green summer dress. Holding hands with a handsome man, in a summer suit. The bouquet in Minerva’s free hand would give the occasion away, if the looks on their faces hadn’t already. Rolanda scrambles out of bed, and has a shower in less than forty seconds. Gets into the clothes one of the elves must have set out for her at some point during the night. Can’t keep herself from looking between the photo, and Minerva’s naked back, sticking out just between the sheets. Her long hair in a messy braid. The way her arms cling to the pillow.

Rolanda tries to leave but Minerva sits up and puts on her glasses with one hand. “Without a kiss?” She says, warm and fond, unembarrassed.

Trying to act as if everything is alright, Rolanda comes closer and kisses Minerva. “Didn’t want to wake you,” she says, which isn’t all the way a lie. She can’t stop her eyes from flicking to the picture though, and Minerva notices.

“You’re jealous?” She asks, flabbergasted in a way Rolanda has never seen her before.

“No,” she says, because that’s not what’s making her feel nauseous. “Just, I’d forgotten.”

“That I was married to Elph?”

“We weren’t... close. Then,” Rolanda tries. _Man he’s a man, man, man_ , her mind sings. She aches to be flying.

“Is that all we are now?” Minerva asks, her voice rising in pitch like the answer should definitely be _no_. “Close?” She spits it out. Rolanda does leave, then.

After the match, after dinner, she finds Minerva sitting on a rooftop, swishing her tail. Rolanda balances carefully. She’s safe, could fly away if she were to fall, but Minerva doesn’t know that. She sits down next to the cat with a sigh.

“I owe you,” Rolanda says, and Minerva shifts immediately, eyes spitting fire.

“If you think _money_ is the way to go on this – ”

“No,” says Rolanda. “I have a very sincere apology ready to go.” She swallows and looks out at the glittering lake. “But I have to admit I’m curious now about how you were going to finish that sentence.”

“You’re in for a nasty surprise,” Minerva says, softly. Now she just looks sad and deflated, and that is way worse, somehow.

“I can’t pretend to understand,” Rolanda says. “But I’ve been thinking I can try. And I will. I want to.” She means it, and she can tell the exact moment Minerva believes her. “I’m very sorry for assuming your marriage says more about you than all the other things I know to be true.”

“You’re not the first woman I’ve been with, you know,” Minerva says, when she’s lowered her head onto Rolanda’s shoulder. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t like both, that I’m with you.”

####  *******

It hurts for a while, the thought that Rolanda could be uncomfortable with her, with something so deeply personal. She almost declines when Rolanda shows up with the promised galleons and a guilty frown. Something in her wants to demand more, wants a secret to make her feel better about her heart open and vulnerable like a broken window. The way Rolanda hides grates at her nerves, pulls at her heart. Some days it’s all she thinks about. It feels unfair, unbalanced.

Rolanda disappears into the night, misses classes, runs off in the middle of anything when a little brown-flecked owl comes fluttering down at her. The only magic Minerva has ever seen her perform is when she sets letters on fire right after reading it. As if somehow her _magic_ would be too personal to let anyone see. There are things in her mind that don’t exist outside of it, Minerva thinks. And she wants in.

She reels in her rude tongue, and invites Rolanda in for some tea. Bites down on her own sharp edges as best as she can, and fails several times, by the way she makes Rolanda flinch.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “I’ll be back to normal soon.”

“You could tell me what you need,” Rolanda says, a challenge in her eyes, and dammit she knows her too well. A plea she could have ignored, but never a challenge.

“I think I have everything that I need,” she says, “I just tend to get a little prickly over things I want.”

“So what do you want?” She asks, yellow eyes big and insistent. She’s not the type to ask questions she doesn’t want the answer to.

“Honesty, loyalty,” Minerva says, proud and not the least bit shy.

“Courage? The Gryffindor way?”

“Don’t do that,” Minerva tells her immediately, “don’t mock me for wanting.” Rolanda looks like she regrets her words, and Minerva barrels on, “I want you, and that doesn’t mean I need more than what we are, but it also doesn’t mean I will be shamed about what I want.”

“That sounds like a proper relationship,” Rolanda says, soft and quiet.

And really, “would that be so bad?”

 

 

> #####  **WHERE RITA IS WRONG – THE 49** **TH** **EDITION**
> 
> October 19th, 2001 – By Mouse
> 
> Before we dive into this months’ edition of Rita’s horrible wrongdoings, I would like to call all of my loyal readers to submit your favourite editions, the most disgusting wrongdoings I wrote about, or things I never mentioned, that are nevertheless awful. Send them to Saorsa, and mention your favourite guest reporter, Mouse, as well as the 50th edition special WHERE RITA IS WRONG all-pager. I know you’re as eager as I am.
> 
> Now what we’ve been waiting for: Where did Rita cock up this month?
> 
> As you know, Rita has some trouble recognizing boundaries, and last week, the 12th of October to be precise, we received a letter from one of our youngest guest correspondents ever, 7-year-old Maeve. She writes:
> 
> (Image description: Childish handwriting (but well done, Maeve, gorgeous letter), with liberal and expert use of both colour and glitter. Text: “Dear Mr or Ms Mouse. I write to tell you that my name is Maeve and I am 7 and last week we had so many bugs in the classroom and then suddenly there was a lady coming in asking to interview Clarence, but Clarence’s mum said no they can’t do interviews. So the lady said her name was Rita Skeeter and I remembered that you like to write about her so I’ve made a drawing of how it looked like. Love and kisses, Maeve”)
> 
> As you can tell from the intel generously provided by our very own Maeve, Rita Skeeter attempted to enter a classroom to harass a student at the place where they are supposed to be able to focus on their studies. This student is not even Hogwarts age yet. Parents of the Merlin’s Hat – School for Magical Children have filed a suit with the Wizengamot, but we have long since learned not to hope that Rita Skeeter will ever meet a single consequence for her terrible actions.
> 
> Now this would normally be where we apologize to Maeve and her parents for the use of language in this column, but clearly they don’t mind all that much. Keep it up, Maeve, and thank you so much for the contribution!

####  **FOUR**

After the debacle at the 1994 World Cup, and the fact that they were rather busy around the time that the tickets went on sale in 1998, the first World Cup Minerva gets to enjoy, is the one in Swaziland. The English team did not qualify but Minerva has a soft spot the size of the Atlantic for Viktor Krum, so she does not mind overmuch. It takes a very uncomfortable conversation, but she ends up convincing Rolanda to only book one camping spot.

“Of course we would be in the middle of all of our students,” Rolanda hisses when they’ve got their spots, their drinks, their flags.

“At least these are adults,” Minerva whispers back, “and you did insist on using your Magical Games and Sports discount.”

“It’s the T.E.A.M.S. now,” Rolanda says tartly, “since the fusion. Tourism, Education and Magical Sports.” Minerva tells her she can go fuck herself loud enough that somewhere a Weasley snorts.

“Nice one Professor!” She hears, and she bites her lip to not show how glad she is to see all these faces.

Quidditch matches are long. It’s easy to forget with Hogwarts matches never lasting more than a few hours, but this field has not been spelled to keep the Snitch close. When it’s been almost twelve, and the Snitch has not been spotted for at least three, Rolanda wraps her arm around Minerva’s waist, and Minerva lets her head lean down. She’s sure there’ll be questions about this, from students or the press, if nothing more interesting happens today. She also is quite beyond caring, especially when Rolanda heaves a bone-deep sigh, like she expected Minerva to turn away from her.

“How do you know all these people?” Minerva mumbles, when Rolanda points out another witch from somewhere far away and foreign that she knows, using the Omniculars to zoom all the way in. “And stop that, I don’t want to know more about her popcorn than she does.”

Rolanda chuckles and it jostles Minerva’s head, but she doesn’t mind.

“Do you know Saorsa?”

“The word? Or the paper?” Minerva asks, quieting her voice to preserve the intimacy of being here together. “I know both. I still get the paper, have you not seen me read it?”

“I founded it,” Rolanda whispers.

 

Something shifts, then. Minerva feels dizzy, narrows her eyes at the witch across, her bright red popcorn bucket the only thing visible from this far away. The enormity of the crowd around them. There’s nowhere to go. Anti-Apparation wards are up all around, and their nice seats are surrounded by other seats, people dancing on the chairs or staring at the scoreboard with wide eyes. “I’m sorry,” Rolanda whispers, and she damn well should be. Rolanda holds out her hand, and Minerva crushes it between her own as she lets it settle in, mind racing, until she realizes that bizarre as it is, somehow, it does make sense.

“Let’s talk about something else,” she suggests, mindful of the crowd, hoping it’ll help with the feeling of blood rushing in her ears, and Rolanda sighs, deep and bone-weary. Nods.

They sit huddled together, sharing their food, relishing the opportunity to talk for hours, ignoring most of the people around them.

“Wait,” Rolanda says, confusion all over. “And then you’re supposed to drink the potion at the same time? How?”

“Well you divide it into two goblets,” Minerva whispers. “How do you not know this?”

Rolanda lifts an eyebrow at her. “You know British Wizarding traditions are different right?”

“Ah,” Minerva breathes. “Of course. Do you want me to explain funerals to you?” She can tell by the way Rolanda stiffens next to her that that won’t be necessary, and shifts gears. “Alright, how about baptism?”

“You baptize your children?” Rolanda asks, her nose twitching in disapproval. “Why?”

“It’s... A left-over from some ancient misguided attempt to make us get along with Muggles I suppose. We use magic of course, and we don’t go to churches or priests for it, but it is still common to set up a basin of water with some magical herbs in it, and splash your baby with it.”

“Where do you do this?” Rolanda asks, astounded still.

“At home,” Minerva says, “usually. It’s a good way to get everyone together when the baby is still a new-born, but no longer so fragile. Usually around the six-week mark, when the person who gave birth has recovered.”

“Baptism,” Rolanda shudders. “How come I’ve never heard of this?”

“It’s a private affair,” Minerva shrugs, and it’s true, it’s not something you talk about, but she instantly realizes what that means about Rolanda. “And it’s a bit old fashioned, not everyone does it, and if the child doesn’t have grandparents, it’s unlikely to happen.”

“Is that when you choose the godparents?” Rolanda asks, conceding with a little dip of her head in the general direction of Minerva’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Minerva whispers into soft grey hair. “I think the Weasleys have nodded off again, do you want to tell me something else about Saorsa?”

“Not really,” Rolanda laughs, but she lets Minerva set up another little bubble of quiet around them again, so they can talk. “I really am not as involved anymore. Sparrow does most of it.”

“Horseshit,” Minerva tells her, and Rolanda huffs out a laugh. “You think I don’t know how often you’re gone?” It’s just all finally starting to make sense. “Who else knows this about you?”

“No one,” Rolanda says, like it’s that simple, and it makes Minerva’s throat feel a little tight. At least Rolanda can’t see her blink a few times to clear her mind. _No one_.

When Krum gets beaten to the Snitch by a hairs’ width, Minerva cries with him. Rolanda doesn’t laugh, doesn’t point out that they both lost twenty Galleons on Minerva’s steadfast belief in Krum, and dances deep into the night at one of the parties their students, past or present, are too young to know about. Somewhere around five in the morning all of Minerva’s hair has come loose, swinging around her waist, half of it in curls from the bun it was in. Rolanda can’t keep her hands off of it, and Minerva lets her. They kiss for a while, slow dancing to the wrong song, and it almost makes up for the sense of loss.

####  *******

The next day would have been Blackbird’s birthday. Rolanda feels his loss sharply on days like these, even if it’s been four years. She wakes up feeling perfectly alright, and when she sees the date and remembers the last birthday party they threw for Albert, she sinks back into the pillows.

Minerva knows something is wrong, and shoots her looks all day. Rolanda feels a strange sense of regret that she never said anything before, about her loss, and her grief, and the hollowness that manages somehow to be heavy. She doesn’t ask, Minerva, she rarely does anymore, and that hurts too. For someone like her to have stopped asking, Rolanda must’ve been quite rude.

“Get dressed,” Minerva tells her around lunchtime, judging by the way the tent is starting to feel a bit overwarm, even with cooling charms. She gets spelled safe from the sun, and together they walk through the campsite. They walk for a long time, until Minerva turns to a tiny copse of trees, and clambers down into what looks to be a hole in the ground.

“What are you doing?” Rolanda asks, looking down at Minerva, already mud-streaked and fluffy-haired.

“You can stand there and never find out,” Minerva says, “or you can stop your moping for long enough to discover something new.”

It stings, how she says it, but Rolanda reminds herself that her heart has never once not been in the right place, and follows Minerva into what turns out to be a deep ragged gorge. The walls are too steep to climb, in most places, but they clamber over rocks and wade through the slow-moving water, until they reach a spot with a rope hanging down the rock wall. Minerva takes it without hesitation, and using the rope, her legs, and a strength of will that, frankly, turns Rolanda on, she climbs up one large rock. She starts on the next one before Rolanda has the good sense to follow, and when they reach the top of the gorge, they look down at the water. Not very far away, not for someone who regularly flies a broomstick and lives in a castle, but far away enough to be proud that they made it up here. Minerva stands tall and looks around.

“We’re at the same level that we started at,” indicating with one arm how flat the land is, despite the huge chasm of the gorge.

“How did you know to come here?” Rolanda asks, sitting down heavily with her legs dangling, fishing around in her pocket for the sandwiches Minerva had made them both. She finds the water bottle first, and hands it off to Minerva. It’s a Muggle one, wizards usually bring a cup and use Aguamenti, but Rolanda knows better than to rely on that.

“Read a poem about it once,” Minerva says, between long sips. She refills the bottle with a stern look, not even bothering to use her wand. They’re both filthy and rather tired. “I don’t remember much about it, but the conclusion is basically that sometimes you’ve been at the bottom of something for so long, that you forget what the normal looks like. About how it feels like up here is abnormally high when you’re in there,” she nods at the water below, “even when this was normal before you went in.”

“And again when you get out,” Rolanda nods her understanding, swaps sandwich for water bottle. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“You’re quite welcome,” Minerva says, “although I also did it for me.”

All the better, Rolanda thinks. She burns a little candle for Albert that night, alone in her rooms, back in Scotland. “I know,” she says, when the candle seems to wink at her. “I promise I’ll tell her about you, Blackbird.”

Image Description: A drawing of Minerva and Rolanda from the waist up, against an orange background. Minerva wears glasses and a purple dress. She has her wand tucked behind her ear and looks straight ahead. Rolanda wears green. She is behind Minerva, looking over her shoulder to face the viewer. Art by [Tpants/Arty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tpants/pseuds/Tpants) | [artymakeart](https://artymakeart.tumblr.com).

> #####  **SAORSA’S SPECIAL BIRTHDAY EDITION**
> 
> _September 27_ _th_ _, 2002 – By Sparrow._
> 
> As those readers who have been sending us letters upon letters know very well, today marks our 40th birthday. We have shifted back and forth between being a daily or weekly source of news, have been printed in numbers from 30 to 12.000, and are currently printing a new bulletin for you, our favourite readers, once a day. For all 9.562 of you. Thank you.
> 
> We gave you the opportunity to send us your most burning questions these last weeks, and are excited to tell you today that we will be answering very few of them. Luckily, most of you only wanted to know one thing. Who we are.
> 
> I am here to tell you that we can’t say. Much as we hope that Saorsa will never again be the only reliable source in the British Wizarding world in the way it once was, and much as we wish we were confident enough in our Wizarding population’s ability to remember the past to disclose our identities publicly, these are not the times.
> 
> We will give you one name, and some of our stories, because we appreciate you, and have been moved to tears on several occasions by your pleas. Thank you for letting us be the light in your fearful darkness, Leslie Aman, and thank you for your lovely letter. Thank you Henry Peters for your poem, thank you Mary, Angel, and someone who we won’t be judging who goes by the name of Horse. Thank you to all of our readers.
> 
> Now, without further ado.
> 
> In 1962, we came together as a group of concerned citizens, who knew each other through various ways, with the idea to start circulating news that was not so coloured by the opinions coming out of the ministry. We were united and supported by Ladybird, who some of you will remember for her pieces on routes out of Britain, and what to bring if you are fleeing. Ladybird died during the first reign of Voldemort, her name was Lady Elspeth Travers. Yes, that Lady Elspeth. Her legacy remains, in both the fact that her generous inheritance covers most of the fees of running Saorsa, which leaves us to use your funds for supporting families in need, and in the passion with which we continue to relocate every person who asks us for help. If you ran from an abusive home, a dangerous situation, or anti-Muggle sentiments with help from Saorsa, it is Lady Elspeth you should be thanking.
> 
> Ladybird consented to her name being released to the public. We do not have such assurances from the rest of our founding members.
> 
> Robin, who you might remember from their stories about rays of sunshine in the darkest of hours, died soon after Ladybird. We miss their ceaseless optimism and boundless energy still, twenty years later, and have a shot of bourbon in our Thursday coffees for them.
> 
> Blackbird, more of you will remember, was hit by a stray curse during the Battle of Hogwarts, not long ago. During the interbellum he wrote out favourite pieces on reform in the Wizarding world, and his talent and appreciation for the game of politics has left a hole in our contents. His booming laugh and determination to spin everything in our favour has left a hole in our lives.
> 
> Mouse, who you know from the Rita Skeeter columns and the sense of excitement you feel when you remember Monday is Fuck Rita Skeeter Day, is still with us. Some parts were lost during the first war, but four limbs always was excessive. Mouse loves puzzles and Muggle television, and hopes to one day understand the meaning of ‘offside’.
> 
> Hawk, who you know from our lengthier pieces and her magnificent interviews, has watched over our operations since day one like... well. She loves women, flying, and really is more of a whisky kind of girl, except for on Thursdays of course.
> 
> Sparrow, who wrote the rest of this piece, but not these sentences about herself, does most of the reporting these days. She loves to sing and curse, the intersection of which leads to an unfortunate obsession with sea shanties. Sparrow is the fire of the operation, the endless kindle that keeps us burning.
> 
> In this edition we have re-printed some of our favourite articles, at least one from each of us, for sentimental reasons mostly, but also because so many of you have asked.

####  **FIVE**

“Who are your friends?” Minerva asks, lounging in a sundress in the garden of her sister-in-law. Surrounded by people dressed in flowing robes and gowns. Harry Potter is here somewhere, clinging to Minerva like a barnacle, grateful for every scrap of attention they give him. It only makes her love Minerva more, to see how gentle she is with Potter, who in all his 20 years had never looked more helpless to her than when Minerva’s family welcomed him into the fold without question, and then asked him if he’d play Quidditch with them. Minerva’s enormous old-fashioned hat is making her look like something out of a children’s book. Except women in children’s books don’t drink straight whisky at eleven in the morning.

“I’m not sure I have any,” Rolanda finds herself saying, too safe and relaxed to find a more guarded answer. “There’s... people, we run Saorsa together.”

“But not friends?”

“No,” Rolanda says, and suddenly she’s very sure. “No, too much has happened for that. We were friends, before.”

“Were you friends when you started?”

“Some of us,” Rolanda whispers, has a long drink of the lemonade someone gave her when they arrived. They’d been some sort of friends before quite so many people died. “Friendship is a luxury.” She says, after observing the people running around the lawn for a while.

“Not at all,” Minerva says, looking at her with a sternness that makes Rolanda shiver. “what else is there to fight for?”

“Duty, justice, anger,” Rolanda says, but it rings false. “Love, for a people rather than specific people. Family.”

Minerva concedes the point with a shrug, and they let it go in favour of watching nieces and cousins and people that wandered onto the grounds years ago and haven’t ever really left. Rolanda ponders the difference between friends and family and how perhaps her friends became her family. How she feels about her family, love, irritation. Protective. It fits.

 

Minerva’s family sets up for a game of Quidditch, and her sister-in-law Griselda complains loudly, but the twinkle in her eye is familiar.

“She loves this,” Rolanda realizes with a grin of her own and she watches Minerva nod in agreement. “How do they normally decide the teams?”

“Depends,” Minerva says, and she explains about her cousin Walter, who is pushing seventy now and still insists on being a Beater. How he picks team captains, and then it’s up to them to find players for the teams.

“Does the team with cousin Walter always win?” Rolanda says, laughing out loud now.

“Usually,” Minerva says, smiling back, “and if he manages to snatch Harry this time, I’d give him very good odds indeed. But let me tell you about Jo.”

“What do we bet on?” Rolanda asks when the teams are about to take off.

Minerva looks around and Rolanda knows that sly smile better than anything, her thighs are clenching before Minerva even leans in to whisper in her ear. “I’ll let you sit on my face,” she suggests, voice rich and low.

Rolanda shakes her no. “Kisses aren’t for sale,” she whispers back. Minerva looks surprised for a second, then sweetly happy.

“Can I throw one in as a bonus?” She asks, waiting for Rolanda to nod. Then: “Let’s say three Galleons?”

They shake on it, and Walter’s team wins, making Rolanda a full three Galleons richer. The bonus kiss is also immediately given, in full view of the whole family. It’s a surprise, but a welcome one. The sappy grin Rolanda can’t help but smile afterwards surprises her almost as much as the way Minerva’s family crowds around her, chats with her, the way the kids ask to sit on her lap. She feels absorbed, and safe.

####  *******

“Did you just... are those matches?” Minerva strains her neck to catch a glimpse and sees, yes, matches. They’re in Minerva’s rooms, but she’d needed the bathroom and had gone straight through, leaving Rolanda alone in her sitting room. Rolanda looks up from where she is lighting the candles, the light reflecting on her face, making her eyes dance. She shrugs.

“Not my favourite spell,” she says, and she goes to light the other candles. Minerva has to bite down on her magic, keep it tight inside, to stop herself from turning all the candles on with a thought. It’d be bragging, she knows.

“What spells do you like?” She asks instead, hanging her hat and coat. She has seen Rolanda set things on fire, many times. Never candles, if that she thinks about it, but letters and notes and bits of paper that she now knows must have been related to Saorsa.

“Summoning is always fine,” Rolanda says, but she clearly has to think about it, “I can do a Patronus usually. Not corporal, but strong enough.”

“Quidditch spells,” Minerva adds, she’s never seen Rolanda struggle with her job.

“No, those I just do, I don’t really say them.” Decades of teaching have taught Minerva that that isn’t how it works, but she holds on to the questions about language, and Rolanda’s wand, and whether she ever struggled with reading. Literally bites her tongue. “Stop.”

She looks up and finds Rolanda’s nostrils flaring. Thinks about how Ollivander could probably help. What are the limits? What happens when she tries a bad spell?

“Minerva,” Rolanda says, “I’m serious. Stop. I’m not your student, and I don’t need fixing.”

And that is true, of course it is.

Minerva, as ever, can’t keep promises she didn’t make. She’d have made the promise if she’d thought she could keep it. Makes it through more than one half-sentence before realizing what she’s doing and how it’s not her place, would’ve finished this sentence if Rolanda hadn’t stood up to leave.

“You’ve got to stop that,” Rolanda tells her, and Minerva nods. “No, really.”

She looks up and finds Rolanda full of righteous anger. “I’m sorry.”

“That is not enough,” Rolanda tells her, and that’s fair too. “Sometimes you treat me like I don’t have feelings. Should I not be safe here?” It makes tears come to Minerva’s eyes, and she bites her tongue harder. “Do I really need to be good at spells to be worthy? Is it that important?”

“No,” Minerva chokes out, reaches out, begs Rolanda to come back. “No, it isn’t and I’m so sorry to have made you feel that way.” Tears are stinging her eyes now. “Please come closer, I’m so sorry.”

Rolanda does step closer, and she even pets her hair. Minerva leans into it. “Why do you get to be comforted for hurting my feelings?” Rolanda says, quiet as anything, not stepping away. Minerva draws her down until she’s kneeling on the floor between Minerva’s legs.

“I love you,” she says, kissing her forehead and her cheeks, and Rolanda’s lip wobbles. “And I think you are strong and powerful, and I admire everything about you.”

“Not everything,” Rolanda says, stubborn even like this.

“Yes, everything,” Minerva promises. “I wish things had been easy for you. I wish they still were. I’d take every barrier from your path. That is what I mean when I try to help, even if it’s not wanted.”

“Alright,” Rolanda says. And Minerva kisses her again. Tries to make her believe it.

Rolanda falls asleep first that night, a rare enough occurrence as is. Minerva feels fresh tears well up as she pets Rolanda’s hair, traces her cheekbones and her nose. Her sharp, defined eyebrows, her jawline. Beautiful, and handsome, and so full of fire. They’d had a lovely day, and she feels herself overflow with determination to be kinder to Rolanda, to not depend on her to fend for herself within their relationship so much. “I love you,” she whispers, and she shuffles down lower between the sheets to tuck her face under Rolanda’s chin.

“Mmm,” Rolanda replies, and she presses a sleepy half-kiss to Minerva’s hair.

 

 

> #####  **HARRY POTTER DIVORCES**
> 
> _August 3_ _rd_ _, 2003 – By Sparrow._
> 
> Harry James Potter and Ginevra Cedrella Weasley hereby announce the finalization of their divorce proceedings, as filed to the Ministry of Magic on April 23rd 2003.
> 
> Their family ask for peace and understanding during this time.
> 
> Mr Potter and Ms Weasley remain close friends.

####  **SIX**

Minerva was expecting the nightmare. After the day they’ve had, it makes sense. Going to find three lost students in the Forbidden Forest in the middle of the night will remind anyone of grimmer times. She was expecting it to be her though. When she insisted on Rolanda sleeping over (please, it’s Saturday tomorrow, there’s no need to wake up early, I would really prefer not to be alone tonight) it didn’t even occur to her that the hesitation she’d felt was for anything other than practical reasons.

Still, she wakes up in the early hours of the morning, certain it’s not time to be awake yet. Next to her is the familiar presence of Rolanda, and something is wrong. Rolanda whimpers, and Minerva notices she is too warm.

“Hey,” she says, not whispering, but calmly and quietly. “Sweetheart, can you wake up for me?”

Rolanda twists and gasps as she wakes up, almost violently. She closes her eyes and her nostrils flare as she forces herself to take a slow breath in, and a long breath out. It creates the appearance of calm, but Minerva is holding her wrist and can feel her heart pound.

“No need for that,” she says, surprised by her own tone, and the feeling of something hard set in her chest at the thought that Rolanda might think this would be something to hide. “We’ve all been there.”

“Not that,” Rolanda says, and she scoots down the bed to bury her face in Minerva’s stomach. Minerva pets her short spiky hair. Fond of everything about her. “I’m German.”

“Yes,” Minerva says. She’s known that for a while. Wondered about the connection between her name and the need to be up and high and above at all times. She knows when Rolanda was born too.

“It was always hiding. Hiding from bombs and boots, and noise, and always we had to be under things, away, behind.” She shivers in Minerva’s arms, and Minerva tucks the sheets up closer. Scratches her scalp.

“Everybody always dies,” Rolanda says, hoarse and small, and Minerva lights a fire in the fireplace in her bedroom with her wand, and pulls up the pillows so she can lean against them. Watches the shivering stop, her breathing settle. Lets Rolanda tuck it all away again until she’s ready to talk about it.

“The children’ve had a scare too,” she says finally. “Let’s organize a match tomorrow, mixed teams.”

“Whichever team gets Davies for a Seeker wins,” Rolanda says, and Minerva tries on a smile. She remembers hiding behind a tree with Rolanda, hours ago, cold in the dark forest, as a herd of terrified Thestrals stomped past. Remembers the flashes of light from the scared children in the middle of the chaos, and fighting their way through to get closer. Close enough to protect them before they woke up something bigger and more scared than themselves.

“I say whichever team has Gomez and Hill,” Minerva counters. “They’re an excellent team.”

“You’re on,” Rolanda says, and there’s a smile in her voice now too.

####  *******

The next morning Rolanda struggles to look at Minerva. She feels weak and exposed, and Minerva makes Quidditch joke after Quidditch joke, which, admittedly, helps a lot. They look out over the match together, one of the students asked to be allowed to referee and Rolanda is surprised but pleased to see how well he’s doing.

“It makes sense, in a way,” Minerva tells her, and she hadn’t realized her thoughts were quite that clear on her face. She makes a questioning noise and Minerva keeps going. “Well with his leg, he won’t be playing professionally, but he does love Quidditch, and he’s got a good eye for it.”

She’s right and Rolanda nods. “And he’s not quite suited for commentary either.”

“Might be one day,” Minerva says, and she squeezes Rolanda’s elbow quickly. “Maybe when our miss Kaya graduates you could ask him.”

It’s a good idea, and it’s only minutes later when Rolanda realizes she’s been thinking of that instead of whether she told Minerva too much the night before. She looks up to smile at her, and finds that Minerva has taken out her sketchbook and is drawing birds. The little sparrows that are always around, some of the pigeons that live in the Forbidden Forest, a few owls that Rolanda recognizes. She squeezes Minerva’s leg, and gets a shining bright smile for her efforts. Laughs back.

After the match Minerva has things to deal with, and Rolanda wants to get rid of the buzzing feeling under her skin. She walks across the grounds until she notices Sprout working in one of the greenhouses and the brilliant idea that gives her puts a spring in her step.

“Pomona,” she half-sings, and Sprout straightens up from where she was bent over to water some plants in the pots stacked together in the far corner. She’s grinning already.

“You sly beast,” she says, but she nods in the direction of the path to her underground rooms, and Rolanda waves at her when she walks right past.

“Don’t wait too long!” She says, and she nearly doubles over laughing when she hears Sprout shout back.

“... and if you finish all my weed before I finish watering these plants so help me!”

She rolls them one to share, a pinch of ground cloves for Sprout, and asks the house elves for a plate of brownies, just to be prepared. She is just lying down on the carpet in front of Sprout’s fire, looking up at the sky through the magical ceiling, when she hears the door.

“I’m not fun today,” Sprout warns, while washing her hands.

“Birthday or death day?”

“Shut up,” Sprout tells her, but she lies down next to her with a slow deep sigh, mindful of her bad leg, and accepts a puff. “Oh that’s the stuff.”

She only sniffles twice before accepting the hand that Rolanda has stretched out to her. And then she tells her, she always does. A safe house, a raid, _children_ , recognizing someone under a mask, killing them anyway.

“Just a second cousin,” she says, “all I remember of him is how he used to tease my sister for her pimples.”

“Still,” Rolanda says, and Sprout agrees. Still.

They’re quiet for a bit, and then Rolanda starts trying to explain why she’s upset but Sprout is pants at this bit, she doesn’t offer hugs and kisses and sweet support like Minerva does. Sprout just snorts, and before they know it they’re rolling on the ground laughing.

“So,” Rolanda says, when they’re done laughing, half-serious. She has always wanted to know. “What came first, the name or the obsession with plants?”

“I’m a Parkinson,” Sprout says, deadpan, “by birth. You didn’t know? Pissed them right off when I changed my name.”

“Eh,” Rolanda tries. “Good for you?”

It sets Sprout off again, which sets Rolanda off too, but when they say goodbye, hours later, she hugs Sprout tighter than before. Sprout hugs her back, looks grateful, leans into the kiss on her cheek like... like a flower to the sun, really.

It’s a beautiful name, full of symbolism, of taking root somewhere, of stretching out, of growth, and she’s proud of Pomona for choosing it. That’s not the relationship they have though, she thinks while kicking stones through the grass with varying levels of success. But _would it be so bad_ , Minerva would say, and no, it might be quite nice. She’ll tell Sprout at breakfast tomorrow.

She is surprised when her legs carry her back to Minerva’s rooms instead of her own. Even more surprised when Minerva isn’t in, even though her door usually opens for her now, when it’s in a good mood at least. The mystery of where Minerva was at is solved not long after, when Rolanda has decided to get some work done.

“Pfff,” Minerva sighs, slamming the door closed. “Filch is such a shit.”

“Really?” Rolanda looks up, then peers over her reading glasses.

“Absolutely. What are you working on?”

“It’s a secret,” Rolanda says easily, folding her papers closed and putting them away. Taking her glasses off to rub her nose. “So what happened?”

“I know he’s brilliant,” Minerva complains, “and I know that I’m the one that cast that stupid spell.”

“But?” Rolanda nods to the sofa and Minerva sinks into it with a huff. Grins when a tea set appears in front of her on the coffee table. The elves have always liked her.

“But I wish he’d stop bringing it up! Every time I see him he mutters about those stupid suits of armour, as if they weren’t necessary! As if they’re not the only reason we’re not all werewolves.”

“You know he has to fix them, right?” Rolanda is smiling now, and Minerva tries to fight a grin with very limited success, as if she wants to hang onto her bad mood for just a bit longer.

“Of course.” She sighs. “And I am sorry that no one acknowledges his work, and that nobody appreciates his Muggle degrees in restoration. I’m even sorry that he’s old and sour and smelly and – ”

Rolanda twitches her wrist and Minerva’s tea splashes in her face, “hey!” They both laugh, spilling even more tea, and Minerva tries to dry her face with her sleeve before giving up and gasping along with Rolanda, until they’re clutching their sides.

“Maybe we should befriend him,” she says afterwards, only half-serious. But Rolanda doesn’t do halves, and she should’ve remembered that.

“I think we should.” And that’s another evening gone to plotting. They decide to start with getting him to sit at the table for dinners, and petitioning for his titles to be used when he is addressed. They discuss how useful it would be to have his help for those students that are considering a Muggle education, or the ones that want to learn more about magical art and art history.

“He shouldn’t be called caretaker if he’s a conservator,” Minerva says at some point, and they sit down to write Severus a letter then and there. “Would he be more of a conservator or a restorer?” Minerva asks halfway through a sentence, and she gets a kiss on her nose as a response. ‘Conservator-restorer’, she writes, grinning like she means it.

“I’m going to start saying hello to him whenever I see him,” Rolanda suggests at night, when they’re wrapped up in each other.

“He might think you’re mocking him,” Minerva warns, but they’re on the same page. They’re determined now.

 

 

> #####  **QUIDDITCH SCORES AFTER BURMESE CATASTROPHE**
> 
> _February 8_ _th_ _, 2004 – By Hawk._
> 
> This winter’s Quidditch season has ended with Burma playing Costa Rica for the quarter-sixth finale. Six of the members of the Burmese team are still being seen to by Healers, after their Seeker used a faulty Speed Potion on his team. Speed Potions are banned by the International Association of Quidditch, but unfortunately Thiha Hayma U decided it was worth the risk. The local Magical law enforcement will investigate where the faulty potion came from, and how it managed to injure the rest of the team.
> 
> Costa Rica will continue on to the half-eighth, as will Hungary, Libya, and Kuwait.
> 
> Libya and Kuwait both managed to get the requisite 34.8 points to make it to the half-eights during their match last week where they had an even score when the Libyan Seeker caught the Snitch. Hungary defeated Mongolia in what reporters call the ‘match of the season’, when their newest acquisition, Keeper Nagy Csilla, blocked every single attempt from the Mongolian team to score. Hungarian Seeker Fazekas Harry got the Snitch after three hours and twenty minutes of slaughter in the pouring rain, making Hungary a definite favourite for the 2006 Cup.
> 
> The 2005 summer season will show definitively who will be playing in Egypt in 2006 for the World Cup, but we have a long way to go until then.
> 
> Our team’s next match will take place this August, against Moldova or Sweden, depending on the outcome of their June match, which will take place in Moldova.

####  **SEVEN**

The letter comes when Minerva is chatting to Filch about drawing. Chatting _at_ might be a better way to put it, as it seems Minerva was right with her prediction. Filch seems happy enough to sit at the very end of the table instead of leaving as soon as the announcements are over, but he rarely eats more than a few bites. Mrs. Norris doesn’t like it at all, she sits on the table with her tail flicking furiously during every meal, and more than once their latest Defence teacher has asked whether she could please sit somewhere else. She’s always greeted with a firm no. Not until someone else is happy to sit next to Filch. At least Severus is firmly on their team.

“What’s that?” Minerva asks after dinner, when Rolanda tucks the letter into her robes. “It was addressed to Hawk specifically?”

“It was,” Rolanda admits. “Do you remember Clearwater? Ravenclaw. She wants a job.”

Minerva lights up and Rolanda remembers right in that moment why she doesn’t normally discuss things about Saorsa with anyone.

They’re still arguing about Penelope Clearwater when they get to where Rolanda has to take a right. Rolanda lingers, not wanting to say goodnight on a bad note, but Minerva turns and keeps going.

“Have you been here before?” She asks, surprised at the lack of upset she’s feeling.

“I turn into a cat,” Minerva tells her, squinting through her glasses. “I’ve been everywhere.”

“Not inside,” Rolanda mumbles, when they’re standing in front of the door to her rooms, but she’s already finding the big heavy key she keeps in her pocket. She’d had to smuggle someone into the castle at night to do the warding for her, but at least nothing but this key or her own blood would open the door now. Another thing she hopes Dumbledore didn’t know.

They walk inside and Minerva looks around in awe. It’s a nice space, Rolanda has to admit, all the way to the top of one of the towers, easily accessible by magic she doesn’t even want to understand. The view is pretty grand on a good day, and it is a great day, even if it’s getting late.

“Anyway,” she says, suddenly shy about the sparse furniture, the drawings Minerva made on the walls. There isn’t even anywhere to sit but the bed. “She attached her list of references like she was sure I’d consider it.”

“And you should,” Minerva says, tall and proud. Not even a little bit uncomfortable. “Imagine the dedication it must’ve taken to even convince the owl to take the message to you. That letter she wrote was excellent, she was an excellent student, I’m sure if you call her references they’ll say the same.”

Rolanda bites her lower lip and feel defiant. She doesn’t want to introduce a new person to her newspaper, even if it is getting to be too much for just Nisha and herself. “I’ll think on it,” she says, and she thinks quietly that it’s no one’s business but her own. She can just throw the stack of papers away. Shouldn’t have brought it up.

“Oh sod off,” Minerva says, rolling her eyes, “what are you so scared off? Saorsa will die with you and you know it, stubborn cow.”

Rolanda feels her stomach fall, and she carefully straightens out her face. She knows Minerva is right, and doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.  

####  *******

“Anyway,” Minerva says, after a rather awkward silence. “I just knew you were going to win after that little situation at dinner yesterday, so...” She fishes the coins out of her pocket and smiles at Rolanda, who motions her to sit down on the bed. She does, and Rolanda starts pacing.

“I’m not sure what to ask for,” she says, when the silence has Minerva’s stomach aching. “Or even where I want to go, with Saorsa or really with anything. When Birdie died,” Minerva tries not to ask who Birdie was but it probably shows on her face. “Ladybird,” Rolanda clarifies, “Lady Elspeth. She thought it was hilarious, a lady called Birdie, and we all took real bird names after her.”

She tries to sit down and ends up jumping back to her feet, and turns to look out the window, where flocks of birds can be seen settling down for the night. “Birdie and I _never_ talked about what would happen after, we’d both fought Grindelwald, and we knew Voldemort wasn’t going to be the last person to call himself a Dark Lord. But – ”

“You loved her,” Minerva says, seeing it suddenly. “You loved her and she died.”

“I loved them all,” Rolanda spits, bright and cold. “And they _all_ died.” She sighs and does sit down. In the middle of the floor, but facing Minerva. “I did.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Minerva tells her. “For all of them, but newly for the one I didn’t understand before.”

“Thank you,” Rolanda sighs, deep and heavy. “Don’t call me names.”

Ah. Minerva feels her cheeks heat in shame. “I didn’t – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” she manages. “I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

Rolanda hums. “We never talked about how to keep it going, whether to keep it a secret. I’m trying to do right by her, Min.”

“It’s not her decision anymore though,” Minerva feels certain suddenly, it feels clear.

“Excuse me?” Rolanda’s nostrils are flaring again, and Minerva holds up her hand in apology.

“Not how I meant it, just, you’re not alone in this. Clearly Sparrow and Mouse are as devoted as you are to Saorsa. Lean on them.”

They get ready for bed after that, none too early judging by the way Rolanda slumps over in pained exhaustion. When they’re wrapped in warm fresh sheets and each other, Rolanda kisses Minerva’s nose very carefully. “You’d have liked her. She’d have liked you, too.” It warms Minerva all the way to her toes, for no reason that makes any sense.

“I really didn’t mean to,” she whispers, and Rolanda breathes out, heavy and slow.

“I know,” she says, “I just keep hoping you’ll learn faster.” It hurts, and Minerva sits with it for a long time after Rolanda’s fallen asleep. She can’t change the past, she barely has control over her tongue when she’s paying attention to it, and she just forgets to pay attention sometimes. She briefly considers a Taboo for herself, and then realizes just how many words she’d have to put a Taboo on, and just how many ways there are to hurt someone that don’t involve names. She’ll just have to be an adult about it instead.

 

 

> #####  **WOMEN IN THE WIZENGAMOT**
> 
> _September 14_ _th_ _, 2004 – By Duck._
> 
> [Before you read this article, we, Hawk, Mouse, and Sparrow, would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to our newest colleague. Duckie will be writing for us, and is particularly interested in more in-depth pieces, like the one below. Send her a note by returning owl, or cheer her on privately. We’re very happy to have her.]
> 
> With the official induction of Narcissa Malfoy into the Wizengamot last week, after her husband’s passing in Azkaban, the total number of female representatives is now three. The others are of course Augusta Longbottom and Helena Burke. All three positions were granted after a male relative passed without leaving a suitable heir. In the case of Narcissa, her son Draco Malfoy is known to carry the Dark Mark, which is forbidden on Ministry grounds. Neville Longbottom is expected to take over the seat from his grandmother at her passing, citing other interests as his reason for not assuming his position as soon as he reached maturity.
> 
> Now this new addition brings us from 4% to 6% of the Wizengamot being women. The Muggle government of Rwanda recently instated a law to demand half of their government being female, which just serves as an indicator of our global position.
> 
> Not all Muggle governments of course have such laws, and even laws cannot allow women access to the education and social and familial support necessary to be able to pursue a career in public service, but our Ministry clearly needs a push.
> 
> It is expected that in a few years, when some of the older members of the Wizengamot (Stokke and Hawkworth especially) who do not have sons or other male heirs retire their positions, that the number of women will again rise, but this change is slow. I propose that when the time comes for the elected seats to be voted upon, that all those women that are the smallest bit inclined to politics, nominate themselves for election. The twelve elected seats often go to popular public figures, retired Quidditch players, and heroes of the war. I do not suggest they should not go to these figureheads of our society anymore. I suggest that the figureheads chosen should be female.
> 
> Perhaps one day we too can install a quote on our government, not just on gender-based representation, but also for other minorities in our society.
> 
> So why do we need more women in government? Muggle research shows that women are less likely to be corrupt, something we might have noticed in our last wars had we had any women in positions of power to corrupt. Women are more likely to consider women’s rights and needs while creating and voting on new laws, as well as more compassionate towards minorities. Women are more likely to collaborate across departments and solve problems that cross into multiple domains.
> 
> An all-male Wizengamot has led us into war again and again. I propose a change of power.

####  **EIGHT**

It’s Rita Skeeter's latest blow that really changes things. One day Minerva gets a letter in the owl post that invites her for a sit-down interview with Rita Skeeter, to which she politely responds that she’d literally rather die, the next day her face is on the front page of the _Daily Prophet_. ‘ _Minerva McGonagall – a lover of women,’_ it reads, and it has her sodding wedding pictures right there, next to a photo taken when she received her Order of Merlin. She feels cold dread tingle down her spine, and when she opens to page 7 to ‘read all about it’, dread becomes fear in her stomach. Fear has made her angry her whole entire life, and today is no different. She stands up with a jerk, locks eyes with Severus who is holding his own paper in shaking hands, and marches down the aisle, between tables, past gossiping students, all the way off the grounds.

She Apparates to the ministry, and arrives in the atrium with heat in her cheeks and shaking fists. Hermione Granger is waiting for her already.

“Professor McGonagall,” she says, “she is an unregistered Animagus. A beetle.”

Minerva turns on her heels to face Unspeakable Granger, and nods just once. She knows what she has to do. She files for slander, spreading of misinformation, and throws in a comment about Rita Skeeter’s Animagus form too. For some reason the Ministry always thinks all Animagi have a club with monthly tea-meetings, and Minerva is not above using this assumption to her advantage. She arranges meetings with several of her favourite ex-students while she’s at the Ministry, and visits Elph’s grave on her way back to Hogwarts.

She’s only missed her first class.

“Slander?” Rolanda says, when they’re sitting in her rooms on the sofa she’d bought after Minerva’s first visit. “Don’t get me wrong, I understand it’s uncomfortable, but _slander_? Is it so bad to be...”

“A lover of women?” Minerva says, more sarcastically than she would’ve otherwise, and she stands to pace again. Rita Skeeter has gone too far, and there is no war this time to distract Minerva from taking her down like she should have decades ago. She should have drowned her in the lake when Hagrid was first taking her to Hogwarts, she thinks, looking out of the window. “No. Did you read it?”

“I figured you could tell me yourself if there was something you wanted me to know,” Rolanda says, and Minerva sits back down. Closer this time. Takes her hand.

“What she did hurts someone I love,” she says. “And I won’t rest until she’s hurting too.”

“Nothing I wouldn’t have expected from you,” Rolanda says. “Was he trans?”

Minerva nods, tears burning in her eyes, “and don’t you dare say you knew I prefer women.”

“What?” Rolanda’s hand squeezes in hers, “no, no of course not. We’ve been over this, I told you I get it. I’m only thinking of getting Penelope to write something on everyone that’s been hurt by Rita, a setting the record straight kind of feature.” Minerva’s eyes are still burning, but it’s happy tears this time around.

She’s not exactly surprised by the unwavering support, the rush of affection she feels, but she is something. Overwhelmed perhaps, a bit. “Come here,” she says, pulling Rolanda in for a kiss.

“You know,” Minerva says, when she’s lying on the bed, mostly naked, and Rolanda is sitting on her, kissing her face. “I have tickets for the cross-country race. I know it’s not Quidditch, but I’ll bet Krum will win.”

“You still owe me thirty Galleons for the last match, McGonagall,” Rolanda says, “finish one bet before you make another, please.”

Minerva laughs and pinches Rolanda’s thigh until she moves up, holds onto the headboard, and lets Minerva lick her until she’s soaking, and coming soon after.

####  *******

Minerva is distracted after the article from Skeeter gets published. She doesn’t feel present, needs a squeeze or two to bring her back to her lunch, her marking, even her drawing. She draws her husband, over and over again. From memory, and he smiles bright in every single memory Minerva seems to have of him. His eyes full of love and warmth. Rolanda learns to identify Elphinstone by his eyes alone, and then she learns to love him. Nobody who loved Minerva with such relentless devotion could fail to get her regard.

“Ro,” Minerva tells her one day, in full view of the students, their relationship not so much a secret as a respected fact since Rolanda started having to take Minerva’s hand to get her moving again on more than one occasion. “Ro, you have to write about this too.”

Rolanda nods, and before she knows it she’s set them up in an empty classroom, one they’ve had sex in several times. She can tell Minerva remembers from the way she looks around before smiling. Fond, if not happy.

“If this is hard,” Minerva starts, and Rolanda shakes no. “I was about to tell you the same.”

“So how does this work?” Minerva asks, fidgeting, nervous. Rolanda takes out her notes.

“Just talk to me,” Rolanda says, a smile in her voice as she sets up quill and ink. She leans over to squeeze Minerva’s knee. “You know what to do, just let it happen. I have questions of my own, and our readers have been sending letters with questions too, and we’ll decide together afterwards what we’ll keep. Does that sound good?”

Minerva nods. Sits up straight and tall. Seems to gather her love for Elphinstone around and holds onto it. Rolanda’s mouth twists at how bloody unfair it is that she needs to do this at all, but Minerva wants to get on with it, so she will.

“This is a reader question,” Rolanda starts. “Are you gay now?”

“I was worried about this,” Minerva sighs. “Please tell me you started with the hardest one for a reason?”

Rolanda just winks at her, and Minerva laughs. There’s plenty more to come.

“It was always a matter of time before it came out I suppose,” she says. “But neither of us really wanted it to. I knew that my coming out would undermine his gender, and he knew his coming out would for some people define my sexuality. I am bi, and I didn’t want anyone to know because I don’t want them to question my love for him.”

Rolanda scribbles furiously, and watches Minerva relax into the conversation. They’ve never talked about this before, but that doesn’t mean she’s not allowed to know. “But I love you now, and I don’t want anyone to wonder whether this means I love you less.”

“You’re not here to convince the people that already disagree,” Rolanda says, looking up at her with utter faith, knowing Minerva could convince those people if she’d put her mind to it. Wanting her to spend her energy elsewhere instead. “It’s about convincing the audience. The people who read this who don’t have an opinion, and those who need to be strengthened in their own coming out.”

She watches Minerva take a deep breath, and then – “so what’s the next question?”

They talk until Minerva starts crying, then break for tea. She pushes her tea away after a few sips only, and tells Rolanda to keep going with a steel to her voice that makes Rolanda set her tea down too. After the last question, when Rolanda tells her she’s done, Minerva stands up, throws an empty teacup against the wall so hard it shatters entirely and then lies down on the floor. Rolanda lies down next to her, and they laugh at the ceiling. The broken cup, how sore they both are.

“So how did you know?” Rolanda asks, finally, when the air doesn’t feel quite so heavy anymore.

“You first,” Minerva tells her, but she summons some whisky. “I’ve done enough soul-baring for a day.”

“It’s not so interesting,” Rolanda sits up a little for a sip, then lies back down on the floor. “I just always did.”

“Now that,” Minerva uses her elbows to lean up, and she has her sternest face on. “That won’t do. When is the first time you remember knowing? Was it a source of joy or not? Who was your first, your worst, the truly life-changing?”

Rolanda looks at her and feels a warmth that is strangely new. She’s never felt like this before, she thinks, looking at Minerva’s stubborn mouth, green glittering eyes. “I think I was six,” she says, and they both lie back down so she can tell the ceiling instead. She talks about the war, and the fear, and what came after. Thin soup and thinner shoulders. Being handed warm fresh bread and telling her mother that this was the girl she’d marry. Having her parents laugh. “Not unhappy,” she concludes and she decides to keep going. “The worst was of course when I was fourteen, because being fourteen is awful,” she tells Minerva about the girl in her class with a single black braid, down to her waist. How she’d tried to grow her hair out like that, right until she realized she didn’t want to _be_ this girl.

“Truly life-changing,” she murmurs, sure that Minerva’s curling into her side means that she is getting sleepy. “Was Birdie. She was a wild force of nature, the sense of flying in a storm knowing you have your skills, your broom, and your magic, and nothing else but that stands between you and being splattered across cliffs. I wanted to start Saorsa, we needed a resistance paper here, and she brought me people. It always seemed ironic to me when people spoke of her as someone who brought them calm or quiet, or a safe harbour. That was her work, but it was not her personality.”

“I love you,” Minerva whispers, indeed almost asleep, and Rolanda kisses her soundly, then lifts her up to take her back to her rooms.

 

 

> #####  **THE FALL OF RITA SKEETER**
> 
> _February 22_ _nd_ _, 2005 – By Mouse._
> 
> Dearest readers,
> 
> I write you today with two pieces of absolutely excellent news. First of all, Rita Skeeter has officially been fired. The _Daily Prophet_ released the news this morning, prompting us at the redaction of Saorsa to take some of the really excellent whisky Hawk thinks she’s been hiding from us, and doing all of our work the rest of the day while inadvisably drunk.
> 
> It’s a good thing I had some notes before getting sloppy.
> 
> The second piece of good news is something I forgot. But I may well get back to you on this! Ah – no, there it is. Our beloved Duckie has written us a little something that you can find on page 4, and there is an interview with professor McGonagall, Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts, on page 8. Duck’s article is about some of the people that have been hurt by Rita Skeeter, based on instalments of Where Rita Is Wrong as well as some of the letters that have been flying into our mailbox since we announced that she was finally going to appear in front of the Wizengamot. While the trial will not take place for a few weeks, Skeeter is considered a flight risk (pun entirely unintended) and therefore will be kept at the Ministry in a holding cell as she awaits her trial. The maximum sentence for being an unregistered Animagus is having your wand taken away, and I for one hope Skeeter will never again be allowed to do any magic, of any sort. And because I know some of you will find this more interesting than everything else I’ve said so far: Duck’s article features a strongly written letter by none other than Harry Potter.
> 
> Our Hawk interviewed professor McGonagall and together they wrote a beautiful article about Minerva’s husband, the love they had, the newfound happiness that is in her life through the Hogwarts’ flight instructor Madame Hooch, and how the court of public opinion can ruin a life. Have tissues at hand.
> 
> Today we celebrate the untimely (it should have happened decades ago) demise of Rita Skeeter, tomorrow and every day after we’ll continue to take down shoddy journalism and wretched awfulness.
> 
> Cheers!

####  **NINE**

Rolanda runs up the stairs to Minerva’s quarters. She’s been gone for a few days, too many things happening at Saorsa, no classes at Hogwarts to attend to anyway. She’s been plotting this whole time exactly how she’s going to make Minerva scream, even visited a few shops here and there while she was flying around Europe so she can be creative about it. When she knocks on the door and Minerva doesn’t come open it in seconds, her stomach drops, and when she hears a weak ‘come in!’ after knocking again, she gets scared. She holds her wand in one hand, and opens the door with the other. Closes it behind her carefully. Sneaks over to the bedroom door, where she hears a ‘Ro?’ come through.

She pushes the door to the bedroom open, and almost drops her wand. Minerva is lying in bed, and it’s not even dinnertime. Her hair is fanned out on her pillow, and her face is pinched with pain. “Merlin, what happened to you?”

“Just my back,” Minerva smiles, or tries to. “Old injuries, bad weather.” She tries to move and winces and Rolanda backs away, sees pain and confusion on Minerva’s face, and turns into an owl. She flies out the window, and down to the infirmary, where she changes back smoothly.

Poppy lifts a single eyebrow at her, more amused than worried, and pats her arm while she pants. “Minerva,” she manages, “she’s in a lot of pain. From her back.”

“I know just the trick,” Poppy says, and it makes Rolanda feel better until she comes back with a standard pain potion.

“Poppy!” She says, and she’d ruffle her feathers if she still had them, “I said a lot of pain!”

“This is what she takes, doll,” Poppy tells her, and with another pat to her arm she bustles Rolanda back out into the hallway.

Where Rolanda is forced to walk the same path she took minutes ago back up to Minerva’s quarters. She lets herself in easily this time, and finds Minerva in the same position as she left her, looking pissed as all hell. Rolanda holds out the potion and her face doesn’t change at all. Her ears would be twitching if she were an – ah.

“You could have told me!” Minerva says, downing the pain potion despite her obvious anger. “What was all that for,” she continues, leaning back against her pillows to wait for the potion to work, “what are you trying to prove here?”

“Nothing,” Rolanda says. Honestly, she wasn’t. She kneels down next to the bed on the rug Minerva keeps there. Probably smart considering how cold the floors get in winter. Minerva places a hand on her head, and Rolanda breathes a sigh up and down from her toes. Home, and safe. Panicking over nothing. Her cheeks are hot, but the slow petting of her head spells forgiveness.

“Is this why your eyes are yellow?” Minerva whispers, and Rolanda nods.

“Spent three years as an owl,” she says, “before.” During that other war. Her eyes never changed back again after. “They were blue before.”

“Sit with me,” Minerva suggests, and Rolanda can do better than that. She takes off her clothes and joins Minerva under the covers, naked against soft sheets and a well-worn nightshirt. “I’ve missed you,” Minerva says and she continues petting her head. “Will this be happening often?”

“No,” Rolanda promises, “I’d rather be here. I don’t even know who won the match.”

“Guess,” Minerva says, her smile obvious even without Rolanda looking up at it. “You’ll get three Galleons if you guess correctly.”

Rolanda guesses wrong, and Minerva hums while she falls asleep easily for the first time since she left. Minerva’s soft singing becomes words at some point, Gaelic ones, mostly. “ _What else are you hiding_ ,” she thinks she hears at some point, and she thinks on it. Comes to the conclusion that she’s not really sure.

####  *******

Minerva wakes in the middle of the night feeling infinitely better than she has all day. Her back feels better for having rested all day, and the pain potions too, of course, but more obvious is the way her stomach is not in knots anymore. Rolanda is breathing deeply next to her, and even if she’d promised she wasn’t going anywhere dangerous, even if Minerva trusts her to take care of herself. She’d still worried. Missed her.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Rolanda whispers, hoarse a bit with sleep. “’M sorry I’m an owl.”

“That’s alright,” Minerva rolls onto her side and traces Rolanda’s nose, then her collarbone, with one careful finger. “I just wish you’d feel comfortable with me.” It’s a ridiculous thing to say, Rolanda is practically purring, and still it’s true. She pushes the bedsheets down a bit to give Minerva better access, and so Minerva traces the slope of her breasts, and then pushes the sheets away even more to pet Rolanda’s stomach. She’s still breathing deeply, heavy and slow, her belly rising up and down.

“Can I?” She whispers, and Rolanda nods, lazy and fond, and so Minerva kicks the sheets off all the way. Shuffles down a bit to lie next to Rolanda properly, and traces her hand up and down a soft warm thigh. She knows how tan Rolanda gets in summer, but it’s not summer yet now. She moves her hand up to ruffle coarse hair, and gets her first quiet moan. When she looks up, grinning with pride, Rolanda is looking back. Serious yellow eyes. Craning her neck a bit. Naked and pliant, soft from sleep.

“I love you, Min,” she says.

“I love you too,” Minerva promises. “Even the bits I don’t know yet.” She goes on teasing, just gently swiping her hand up and down, sometimes with a hint of nails, until Rolanda sounds quite breathless. “Want me to stop?”

“Mm – ” Rolanda hums, “only if you’re hurting.” And Minerva knows she means please don’t. Pats her leg.

“Up you get,” she says, and Rolanda sits up before questioning it, then lets Minerva manoeuvre them until she’s kneeling over her, so they can kiss properly for the first time that night. “No, stop,” Minerva says when fingers start creeping down to the edge of her nightgown. “Move up a little?”

A bit more shuffling about has Rolanda holding on to the headboard, strong thighs next to her face, and Minerva kissing her way up, to find Rolanda wet and eager. She whines when Minerva trails a finger down, front to back, then front to back again.

“Min,” Rolanda pants, and they know each other, she knows what she wants. Minerva guides her down and sucks, spells her fingers wet and slick, and plays with Rolanda’s sensitive skin until Rolanda tells her to put it in already, and she nearly chokes as she laughs. They both laugh at the full-body shiver that trails up and down Rolanda’s spine when she pushes in, “too good,” Rolanda promises, and then she comes and comes, legs shaking, voice hoarse, pausing only to look down at Minerva, who feels nothing but love.

She lies in her warm bed, arm wrapped around Rolanda, not long after, staring at the canopy over her head. She slept enough through the day to not feel tired, so she thinks of Rolanda, and then of love, and then of all the people she loves. Which brings her to Harry Potter.

Potter shows up at her offices often these days. He fidgets with his pullovers, shoots shifty glances down the hall, and lingers in her doorway before leaving. Minerva has gotten more patient with age, but she definitely has limits. It’s month three when she starts trying to get Potter drunk, month four when they start calling each other by their first names for sheer time spent together, and month five when she sticks him to the chair with a sticking charm that both of them forget about until Harry tries to leave.

“Ah,” she remembers immediately what it was for. “Out with it.”

“What?” He asks, confused and also lying.

“You’ll still be welcome here after you tell me what you came here for, in the first place,” she promises, and his lip wobbles a little. He mumbles something. “Louder!” She says, encouraging but also, and she’ll admit this freely, shouting.

“It’s more of a question!” Harry says, eyes wide and shocked. “Sorry!”

“Alright,” she settles in and pours them more whiskey. “So?”

“What’s it like?” He asks, miserable and blushing. He nods to the picture of her and Rolanda clutching to each other, laughing helplessly. She smiles every time she looks at it, sometimes at the memory of Severus stepping on his own cloak and falling down dramatically in a flurry of black robes and squawking panic. Mostly she remembers the way Rolanda buried her face against her shoulder while she tried desperately not to get the hiccoughs. And failed.

“With a woman?” She says, eyebrow raised, only a bit to tease him. He flushes deeper. “Or being in love?”

“Being out,” he whispers, and she’d tell him not to mumble, but really she heard him, and it hurts. She kneels in front of him on the carpet, knees cracking, places one hand on his knee. Only remembers she has a sticking charm on him that’s rapidly becoming unethical when he shuffles and the chair moves with him.

“ _Finite_ ,” she says. “It’s a joy. It’s my greatest joy. She is.” Harry chews his lip and nods, a very serious expression on his familiar face. “I feel very honoured to be trusted with this, Harry.” She says because he should know, and because she knows who he would be telling this to instead, if they were alive to be here. “And I’m so proud of you.”

He blinks away tears and clears his throat, nods a few more times, and then asks to leave.

Image Description: A drawing of Minerva and Roland from the waist up, against a pink background. Both are naked. They curl in towards each other, Minerva’s hand on Rolanda’s chest, but do not look at each other. Minerva’s hair is in a long braid down her back. Rolanda’s is short. Art by [Tpants/Arty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tpants/pseuds/Tpants) | [artymakeart](https://artymakeart.tumblr.com).

> #####  **CALL FOR JOURNALISTS**
> 
> _November 8_ _th_ _, 2005 – By Sparrow._
> 
> To the young writer, the old scribbler, the middle-aged wordsmith, and anyone who’s always fancied giving this writing thing a go:
> 
> We have a vacancy. Several in fact, judging by how much some of us are getting older, and how little we’ve been willing to delegate over the years.
> 
> With the greatly successful addition of Duckie to our team last year, we find ourselves ready for a grander change.
> 
> Saorsa has always been run and written by people who were passionate about what they were writing about, so even if you are unsure whether your particular brand of chicken scratch will fit what we already have, please re-read the first sentence of this article and do. Give it a go.
> 
> The process will hopefully go like this: Few loons and many inspired and dedicated long-time readers will send in a sample of their work, we will invite a handful to come meet us and discuss the possibilities of working for Saorsa. We offer good benefits and a guaranteed bigot-free workplace.
> 
> Now might also be the time to remind those who have jobs that they like, or just aren’t interested in anything that requires more than a couple of hours whenever they damn well feel like it, that we take submissions of all sorts. Send in your poem, your thesis, your best advice. We won’t publish it all, but we do try to read it, and we definitely value your time. Write what you want, when you want, and it just might get published. After all, that’s how Mouse has been doing it all this time.

####  **TEN**

When the portkey stops spinning, Minerva feels the sun on her face like a relief. The way a hot bath soothes the nerves after a long day. Rolanda hangs on to her arm like they’ll both fall without it, and she turns to laugh at her. Make a comment about how old they aren’t. But Rolanda is grey-faced in a way she’s never seen her. She looks scared.

It doesn’t make sense, not at first, but then Minerva is greeted by someone who looks like Rolanda but not. There is no warmth in the way her sister looks at her, no joy in the way she hugs Rolanda, no love or excitement in the way she shakes Minerva’s hand. She walks the two of them and their suitcases to a well outside the Auberge that Minerva and Rolanda had landed in front of. She goes first, and gives no explanation.

“We can go together,” Rolanda suggests, and Minerva holds out her hand. Instead of taking it, Rolanda takes her elbow, and helps her sit on the edge, and then jump in. Minerva closes her eyes, and resists the urge to Apparate. When there is solid ground under her feet again she opens her eyes to a small alleyway in a beautiful quiet village. It smells of laundry powder and the beginnings of summer.

“How does it work?” She asks, when Rolanda lets go of her elbow, and Rolanda just shrugs. She’s still uncharacteristically shaken. “Are you alright?”

Rolanda just nods, and they follow her sister to one of the narrow houses in a side street, stepping over the trickle of water that flows down the street carefully with their heavy teaching robes. Rolanda carries both of their suitcases and Minerva takes in the smell of the air, the blue of the sky.

The house is cold inside. Tiles on the floor, wooden beams. It smells of old people in a way that makes the hairs on the back of Minerva’s neck rise, and they are shown to a room on the first floor. Small, but comfortable. Two separate single beds. “Will she be upset if I Transfigure things in here?” Minerva asks, and Rolanda gives her an apologetic look from where she is going through her clothes to hang things in the creaky wardrobe.

“Try Reparifarge,” she says, and Minerva does. The beds turn neatly into one two-person bed. Not fancy, but comfortably sized.

“Put that down, Rolanda,” Minerva instructs, stopping Rolanda midway through hanging a crisp white shirt. she knows she shouldn’t use that tone, especially not with her hat still on, her robes still stern. She can’t help herself. “Sit.”

Rolanda sits on the wooden chair that belongs to the little desk, pushed into one corner of the room. On top of it stands a vase filled with what looks like wildflowers.

“Is this something I should have worried about?” Minerva says, unable to sound soft and nice like she wants to. “I hope you know I’ll play stealth in front of any number of homophobic relatives with you, but please, a warning if you – ”

“No,” Rolanda says, staring at her hands. “She’s just... like this. I hope you’ll get to see what she’s like when she’s happy.”

“Am I being tested?” Minerva asks, sitting down on the bed, close enough to offer comfort and to pet dear grey spikes. “Please help me.”

“I don’t know how,” Rolanda admits. “And if it’s awful we can leave, but it’d mean so much if you could – ”

“Then that’s what we’ll do sweetheart,” Minerva promises, and with one quick kiss she too is unpacking. She picks a summer dress to put on, long but cheerful, and feels herself blush, pleased and happy, when Rolanda looks her up and down and grins from ear to ear. This will work. She’ll make it.

She’s not sure Rolanda would want to, after seeing the room, after the tense silences at dinner, which Minerva tried to fill by practising her French with Ro’s brother-in-law, but when she slips between the sheets after cleaning up and braiding her hair, Rolanda is on her in milliseconds.

“Hey,” she laughs, enjoying the feeling of warm naked Rolanda and knowing full well that the way her fingers shake means something. “Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”

“You’re so good to me,” Rolanda whines, finally giving up on trying to undo the buttons of Minerva’s nightgown, sliding down further under the sheets instead to just push it up.

“Sweetheart,” Minerva says, gently, one hand on Rolanda’s head, “you know I love this.” Rolanda sits back a little, yellow eyes serious and cold, a deep frown on her forehead.

“But?”

“Only if you want to,” Minerva tells her, and how had she failed to make this clear, all this time? “Not to thank me, not to keep me happy, not to claim this space as your own,” Rolanda frowns deeper, and looks away. Her mouth a thin unhappy line. “Only if you want to.”

“I always want to,” Rolanda promises, defiant but with suspiciously wet eyes, so Minerva drags her up for a kiss, and then a couple more for good measure.

“That’s good,” she says, in between panting and groping, escalations of a kiss, “me too.” They come holding each other, Minerva still in her bunched-up nightshirt, gasping into each other’s mouths, and Rolanda tries to sit up after. “No,” Minerva tightens her arms.

“Strange,” Rolanda says, when she’s empty of tension, “to be here, not to be alone.”

Minerva hums, she’s feeling heavy and confused with sleep. “But I love you,” she tries, and it’s probably the right thing to say from the way Rolanda settles in further, and touches her face with trembling fingers.

“Me too.”

####  *******

Minerva is not just excellent at performing magic. She charms Else by ignoring her mostly, focusing instead on getting along with her Muggle husband, her children and grandchildren, some more magical than others, and the first great-grandchild, who pats a fat little hand against Minerva’s cheek in approval and receives such a dazzling smile in return that Rolanda’s breath actually stutters. The way her cheeks colour in pleased excitement, the way her braid slips over her shoulder when she leans forward, the way her summer dresses blow in the wind. Else sidles closer, of course she noticed.

“I like her,” she promises, and Rolanda feels tears fill her eyes. She bows her head to hide them and Else leans against her shoulder in support. Just a quick half-second hug of support.

They go to the Canal du Midi, and walk through endless fields together. They spend a day in Béziers, getting to know a part of the family Rolanda has only vague memories of, in which they are nothing so much as smaller and louder. One day on the beach overcast turns to clouds turns to rain just as the children are about to stretch out in the sand, and somehow Minerva gets a Quidditch game together. Half of the kids can’t even make the brooms fly, and they still all have a blast. She bets like an enchantress, open and loud, encouraging those who knew they would lose to play a game so tight they win. It rains the whole time, fat drops marking the sand, and none of them notice until the Snitch is caught.

Somewhere on the third day Rolanda picks Minerva a sunflower, unable to resist, and she tucks it into her hat. When it hasn’t wilted by the end of the day, Rolanda realizes how much this meant to her, and she finds a way to sneak wildflowers into her hair, little violets on her breakfast, chrysanthemums in her drinks. Else loves Minerva like her own before their stay is half-over, and on their last night, Minerva bows to her, under the string lights in the village square, between people dancing to celebrate some saint or other. Else takes the offered hand, and Minerva dances with her until they are both dizzy and breathless. It’s been years since Rolanda heard Else laugh like this.

Rolanda thinks of how Minerva steps into every body of water without fear, after kicking off her shoes and hiking up her dress. Murky rivers, wild seas, and maybe one day the ocean, dancing around her ankles or still as glass. She stands tall and looks out, drags magic out of wet rocks and soggy grass. Fills her eyes with brightness and power with a straight back and the determination of someone who always, always, always overcomes.

 

 

> #####  **HERMIONE GRANGER ON THE RIGHT TRACK**
> 
> _March 12_ _th_ _, 2006 – By Sparrow._
> 
> From her very first contact with Wizarding Society, at age 11, Hermione Granger has fought with a firm determination to mold it to her own liking. She founded a society for the improvement of the living conditions of House Elves at age 14 and has kept going in the same vein since then. Most know her best from defeating Tom Riddle together with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, but Hermione has not sat still since then.
> 
> After defeating Tom Riddle, she returned to Hogwarts to finish her NEWTs, despite having been offered the opportunity to start straight away at the Ministry of Magic, like all those who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts. She went to the Genevieve Galpalott College of Oxford after graduating with seven NEWTs and graduated there with a LEWD (Laceratingly Egregious Wizarding Degree) in Power and Influence. Several classmates of Hermione at Oxford were Percy Weasley, Draco Malfoy, and of course Tessa Prewett, who is the first woman to ever be admitted to the program, one year before Hermione. A traditionally pureblood course, Hermione struggled with her lack of cultural knowledge in the beginning, but ultimately found the course rewarding.
> 
> We meet her to talk not about her past, but rather about her future.
> 
> “I’m glad you’re not actually a sparrow,” is one of the first things she says to me. “I wouldn’t like to be interviewed by someone without a face.”
> 
> “We’re not named after our Animagus forms,” I tell her, because of course that would be too easy to look up in the Animagus registry, and she laughs, bright and cheerful, her black curls dancing. She is full of energy, seems to constantly be in motion as we talk, flitting from her ideas about schooling, to her thoughts about healthcare and the integration of Muggle technology.
> 
> “You know,” she says, when we’re on the topic of the Wizengamot, “it’s Saorsa that gave me the idea to try for an elected position.” She sips her tea and settles further into her chair. “I read the article about corruption in the Wizengamot right after the war, and then did a study on the topic at Oxford.”
> 
> “That was one of mine,” I tell her, and she grins like she knows.
> 
> “Ever since then it’s been on my mind, the institution,” she continues, “and when Duck published that article on women in the Wizengamot, even going so far as to call for competent women to put themselves on the list... Well, I just couldn’t wait to turn twenty-five after that.”
> 
> Elected members of the Wizengamot, unlike those who have their seat through familial titles and relations, cannot serve when they reach the age of magical maturity. It is something Granger used to want to change. “But I get it now, you want the seats that are elected to be filled by adults who have completed at least the majority of their education, but you don’t want elderly members of a family to keep their seats for seven extra years, if they would rather pass them on.”
> 
> “What are you most looking forward to this coming year?” I ask her, when we reach the topic of her campaign.
> 
> She thinks about it, as she does about every question I ask her. “Meeting people,” she says finally, “I’m aware that there’s a lot of Wizarding society I know nothing about.” She grins and motions around at the library we are sitting in. “I’m looking forward to learn from something else than books.”
> 
> It’s an interesting take from someone who has a bit of a reputation for being the type to throw out the baby with the bathwater. She shrugs when I bring it up. “I hate to put it to age,” I say, and at that she sits up, suddenly full of fire.
> 
> “But you can!” She says, “of course it’s not linear, age and wisdom are not synonyms, but I needed time to learn that incremental change is often more stable, and that stability is valuable.” She brings up three examples in a row, “but really what it comes down to, is that radical change only sounds easier on paper. Sure, you don’t need to know the intricacies of all the laws to ignore them, but there might be something there you hadn’t considered! And activism is useful and necessary, but I for one am happy to fight for what I believe from the inside, because I love the inside.”
> 
> “In what way?” I ask.
> 
> “It’s rather magical,” she answers, eyes shining, with a bright grin. And that does sum it up.

####  **ELEVEN**

“We should probably decide what we’ll bet on,” Minerva says, tapping the tent so it’ll set itself up the right way.

“You want to bet together?” Rolanda asks, setting the bags down heavily, moving her arms to get the blood flowing again.

“Yes,” Minerva nods, before disappearing into the tents with one of the bags. “I know it didn’t go well last time,” Rolanda hears her say when she follows her in, “but I’ve just got a feeling about Sankara, I think he’s going to surprise us.”

“Alright,” Rolanda concedes easily, it’s not like they place large bets usually. “So we’ll bet Sankara gets the Snitch.”

“You know what,” Minerva says, turning around to look at her with glittering eyes, mischievous smile, “if you’re up for it.”

“What?” Rolanda can’t help the smile that starts deep in her stomach and makes her chest swell with joy.

“I’m up for something risky,” Minerva says, breathlessly, right when Rolanda grabs her ‘round the waist. “Sankara gets the Snitch, and... they win with an 80 point difference.”

“Boring,” Rolanda laughs, “Sankara gets the Snitch, and has to pull a Wronski feint for it.”

“Twice,” Minerva laughs too, head thrown back. They turn around each other in the tent.

“I know,” Minerva says finally. “Sankara has to go to the Healers, but refuses to leave the game, then catches the Snitch.”

Rolanda steps back and they shake on it. Then they go find someone to place their bets with.

“What’d you bet?” Harry Potter asks, eyes already shining with excitement. Minerva tells him, and Rolanda looks at the way they know each other. How he trusts her. He is the one that got them these seats, surrounded by important people and more Weasleys than Hooch remembers.

“Wow,” Ronald Weasley chimes in, “that must be worth a lot if you win, what’ll you do with the money?”

“A lavish wedding, of course,” Minerva says, sly look on her face, a smile in the corner of her mouth. Nerves make Rolanda’s elbows sweat but she laughs along, and then the game starts, and she forgets all about the heavy weight against her leg, inside the pocket of her robes.

When Sankara falls off his broom after a Beater hits the back of his head, and he falls almost all the way down before one of the referees manages to cast a floating charm on him, Minerva’s hissed intake of breath and the nails digging into her forearm are the only thing keeping Rolanda from screaming. When Sankara argues with the Healers for long minutes while the game waits, their hands are clasped together so tight it hurts, and when he walks back out onto the field, they stand as one, screaming and cheering. Harry turns around in his seat and winks at them, and Minerva and Rolanda dance on their chairs while Sankara rises up into the air again.

The night passes with excellent flying, especially from both Keepers, who let almost nothing pass at all and by the time the Snitch is seen again, the cold of the morning is already gone. Sankara and the French Seeker battle for it, but loose the Snitch again. It’s another thirty minutes later that Minerva suddenly sits up at attention, right before Rolanda sees it. Outside of the field of vision of Sankara, with the French Seeker already gathering speed... Sankara turns around with a jerk and flies like he’s being chased by the devil, inching closer and closer to the French Seeker, swerving around her, which makes her look, and catching the Snitch with a look of surprise on his face. Surprise turns to euphoria in the space of a breath and he flies around with the Snitch in his fist while Minerva and Rolanda kiss and scream until their throats hurt.

It’s when the stands start clearing that Rolanda remembers. She takes Minerva’s hand, and holds it, making her look.

“Alright?” She says, and Rolanda nods.

“I want to marry you,” she says, and Minerva laughs before she realizes the seriousness of the statement.

“Then do, darling,” she says, and Rolanda finds the box in her pocket, opens it with shaking hands and holds it out. Her grandmother’s ring, smuggled out of the country by an aunt in a cousin’s diaper. Minerva looks down at it, and up at Rolanda, and smiles like nothing better has ever happened to her in her life. Nods.

“You know,” Minerva says, quiet with awe but already putting the ring on her finger, “witches of my calibre are usually proposed to with – ”

“With flowers?” Rolanda says, her cheeks hurting from the grin that’s threatening to split her face. She reaches into her pocket and the flowers she’s had there for the whole match unshrink themselves. They look as excellent as they did when Severus spelled them for her. To keep them safe and small until they were needed.

“Lavender,” Minerva sighs, her smile growing impossibly wider. She holds the bouquet tight and inhales deeply. When her eyes flutter open again they’re wet, and the colour of the flowers compliments her eyes just like Rolanda thought they might.

“We looking at a yes?” She whispers, and Minerva grins, laughs, kisses her fondly. Somewhere a Weasley whoops, and then there’s loud applause thundering in Rolanda’s ears. All she can think of is the smell of lavender, the sure knowledge they’re both in this together.

“You got me flowers,” Minerva says, when they’re walking towards their tent, hands swinging together between them. The ribbon that Rolanda used to tie the flowers together flutters behind them as they walk, and the breeze picks up a bit. Rolanda has never been this deeply happy in her life. “Lavender,” Minerva clarifies, bright and fond. “ _Lavender’s blue_ ,” she sings, and it shocks Rolanda into laughing.

“ _La-ven-der’s green_ ,” she sings back, and when they go out to celebrate, Minerva shows off her ring every chance she gets. Genuinely proud.

####  *******

The next day they have to wait for hours for the international Portkey, in a sweaty little office until Rolanda drags them both up the stands, from where they can watch the pick-up match between a mix of international players. Both ones that had played yesterday, and those who had come as spectators. Minerva is almost certain that the copper ponytail she catches a glimpse of here and there belongs to Ginny Weasley. She thinks about the last time they were at the Worldcup and suddenly remembers something she’s been trying very hard not to think about.

“I had no idea what side you were on,” Minerva confesses, playing with her ring, and she doesn’t want to ruin the light mood, but she wants to have this conversation. Rolanda clearly doesn’t know what to do with her face.

“How could you possibly...” She says, sounding hurt and offended.

“I thought you weren’t! I paid attention to you of course, but you’re so good at appearing neutral, and then especially after Severus... Well I just didn’t trust myself to know whose side anyone was on really.”

“No,” Rolanda interrupts her, “how did you have sex with me if you weren’t sure what side I was on?”

“Oh,” Minerva swallows, the side of her mouth twitches a little, “honestly I trusted you wouldn’t hurt _me_ , in my bones, and you’re gorgeous. And I decided that’d have to be enough while it lasted.”

“Min...”

“No, really,” she says, “it’s not like we shared anything those days, beyond maybe Quidditch puns.”

“Whiskey,” Rolanda adds, and she’s already forgiven her, judging by the softening of her tone. “I know I was maybe a bit too neutral at times.”

“In appearance,” Minerva feels indignation rise in her stomach. “You’ve always been so fiercely on the right side that – ”

“I know,” Rolanda grins, “I know, don’t worry. And it really was necessary to look innocent and a bit useless.”

“Do you think Albus knew?” Minerva asks, quieter than she was speaking before, despite the bubble of silence around them. They’re quite alone in this section of the stands.

“No,” Rolanda says, “I don’t think he ever so much as looked twice at me. Which suited me quite well.”

“He’d have recruited you.”

“Yes,” she says, “and then fired me when he realized I’m useless at all the things he considered important in a person.”

Minerva’s nostrils flare, but she admits the truth of it with a little nod of her head regardless. Rolanda isn’t wrong. “I still miss him.”

“I miss my father,” Rolanda says, as if that means anything, “and the only memories I have of him are of him beating my sisters and brothers.”

“Not you?” Minerva whispers.

“I was barely two,” Rolanda says. Which is not a no.

“Point taken,” Minerva says, instead of pressing the issue. She remembers how long it took Rolanda to mention that she still had a sister. “I feel worse for Severus of course, he loved Albus in such a strange way.”

“Yeah,” Rolanda says, but her eyes are back on the game, following one of the Chasers. She seems to shake it loose. “I had to stay out all of that. But it was strange, I get that.”

“Glad it’s over,” Minerva lets her head sink onto Rolanda’s shoulder before sitting back up. “Now, eyes on the Snitch.”

Image Description: A drawing of Minerva and Rolanda sitting in the stands at a Quidditch match. Both wear elaborate robes. They are facing each other and holding hands. Minerva also holds a bouquet of purple flowers. Art by [saulaie](https://saulaie.tumblr.com).

> #####  **VINDICTUS VIRIDIAN RETURNS**
> 
> _August 28_ _th_ _, 2006 – By Sparrow._
> 
> In the latest instalment of Vindictus Viridians nail-biting series, _On the hunt for potions_ , our beloved hero Sebastian Snarl encounters an unlikely foe, the popular Gilbert Lostwood. No one believes Sebastian, so how will he expose the truth?
> 
> In the last instalment, _Higher than a mountain_ , Sebastian Snarl went to the Himalayas to find out whether the rumours that a Crumple-Horned Snorlack had been spotted were true, and he ended up making a new friend, young Helmut Parsley. Helmut and Sebastian nearly lose their lives fighting the horrible professor Moriarty by the Frozen Waterfalls of Mount Everest, but in the last minute manage to save themselves and each other, in more way than one.
> 
> _‘Sebastian strides into the room with his long legs carrying him faster than Lostwood’s far inferior legs ever could. He looks around and sees immediately that this will be a problem to solve over a good cup of tea. He takes in as many details as he can, and is just fishing his trusted notebook from his pocket, when Lostwood opens his foul mouth._
> 
> _“And of course I can solve this today! I am after all the one that defeated the Giant Appletree by singing a lullaby!”_
> 
> _Sebastian grits his teeth, knowing full well that it was not Lostwood who defeated the Giant Appletree, but a one-eyed witch called Lucia. Just when he wants to shout at Lostwood to tell him exactly what he thinks of his lies, Helmut appears, as if out of nowhere, and he looks at Lostwood with big surprised eyes. “Really?” He asks, “with a lullaby?”’_
> 
> This adventure comes with new challenges, and Sebastian has more to lose than ever. Will Helmut abandon him in his hour of need? Will Sebastian lose his friend to the beautiful liar Gilbert? Find an exclusive excerpt from _The stormy waters_ below, and read the rest when it becomes available in all magical bookstores by August 30th.

####  **TWELVE**

“Eyes on the Snitch, Minerva,” she tells herself, but it doesn’t help one bit. Rolanda looks beautiful in her referee robes, neutral colours but a flattering cut, showing off her strong shoulders, her powerful legs. She has a lot riding on this bet, and Rolanda knows it too. Every time the game slows down a little, Rolanda looks over her shoulder, her eyes somehow obviously yellow even from a distance.

After the match Rolanda is keyed up. It happens sometimes, especially when there’s near misses with the kids. Bludgers getting a little too close, almost-falls. This time it might just be because they bet their next holiday destination on it. Minerva can tell, from all the way across the field, that there’ll be energy to get rid of. She summons her broom and is holding it in one hand when Rolanda is done herding sweaty teenagers into the changing rooms. Her eyes light up, and they take off together, first across the lake, and then through the forest, faster – then faster still. It’s stupid, to fly in the forest, especially this fast, between the trees and the animals and –

“Fuck!” Rolanda shouts and Minerva manages to avoid the mountain only at the last second. The _moving mountain_ , the _moving mountain that is grunting._ It slaps at them like they’re flies and Rolanda gets out of reach first and she shouts something about it being a giant that’s chained down and there’s trees and Minerva is airborne before she knows it. Her only conscious thought is that maybe it’s time to upgrade her fancy but ancient broom to one of the new ones that catches up with you when you fall. Luckily her unconscious thoughts turn her into a cat, roll her around in the air, and get her standing on mossy forest ground, plenty far away from the screaming giant, just on time.

“What the hell!” Rolanda shouts, shielding cat-Minerva with her whole body, as if giants have the eyesight to come after a cat, “who _are_ you!”

To the surprise of both of them, the giant answers. “Grawp!”

“Ah,” Minerva says, shifting and dusting off her robes in one clean movement. “Hagrid’s brother. I had no idea that he’s still here.”

“And you!” Rolanda shouts at her, turning around so fast that Minerva steps back a little. She steps back into Rolanda’s space immediately after, hates the thought that she’d even consider backing away from anything. “Don’t you know not to fly faster than you can take! You have to be careful! What about your hips? That was a huge fall!”

“Ro,” Minerva says, catching up to what’s happening. “I’m a witch. I’m going to be 150 at least before I start worrying about my _hips_.”

“Yeah,” Rolanda says, deflating a bit, and then with a shy look deflating a lot. “Kiss?”

“Sure, sweetheart,” Minerva says, wrapping her arms around tight for good measure. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

####  *******

It takes Rolanda about 30 seconds to recover enough from the shock of watching Minerva fall to become absolutely filled with rage.

“Wait,” she says, arms still wrapped about Minerva’s waist. “Do you mean to say that Hagrid ties his brother up in a forest?”

“Didn’t know he was here still,” Minerva says, “I shouted at him about it years ago, do you want to repeat the experience?”

She nods fervently, and can tell by Minerva’s little huff that they’re on the same page.

Hagrid smiles when they walk up to his hut, hand in hand, still clutching their brooms. His face only falls when Minerva opens with a stone-cold “let’s take this inside, shall we?” from across the path. He folds into the hut, and has tea on the table for both of them soon after they’ve hung their cloaks and sat down.

“Hagrid,” Minerva says, when Rolanda defers to her with a little go-ahead nod, “why is your brother in our forest?”

“Tied up!” Rolanda chimes in, unable to help herself.

“Ah,” Hagrid says, crumpling down even more, and he starts a confusing story of Grawp being bullied, and then going back, and then getting an injury and coming to find Hagrid again, if she’s understanding it correctly. He’s just getting to the part where Grawp kept trying to follow him back out of the forest when Rolanda realizes there’s tears in Minerva’s eyes, and Hagrid isn’t in a much better state, sniffling in despair.

“So he’s small for a giant. How about,” she says, with a deep breath, “we introduce him to the dwarf giants of Micronesia?”

Minerva turns to her, eyes still shining but grinning like she’s the best thing since magic, and Rolanda can’t help the fluttering in her stomach.

“How?” Hagrid asks.

“Oh Ro knows people,” Minerva says, and they spend the rest of the evening plotting.

“Will he be alright until we can get him out?” Rolanda asks when they’re buttoning up again, ready to leave. “Does he have food? Is he comfortable?”

“Yeah,” Hagrid nods, “Snape brews him potions. I pretend they’re for me, but I think he knows. He’s healed from his injuries, he’s healthy, he tells me he’s happier here than he was before.”

Rolanda gives him a brusque nod, leaves the hugging and arm-patting to Minerva, but she kisses Minerva, fond and deep, as they climb up to their new rooms, with a spare bedroom to host family, and a large enough sitting room to entertain. “Honey,” Minerva pants, hanging on to the wall of the winding staircase, “can we continue this where we can lie down?”

“Thought you weren’t old,” Rolanda throws back, and then they race each other up the stairs, both of them cheating with their Animagus forms.

 

 

> #####  **MINERVA MCGONAGALL AND ROLANDA HOOCH TO BE MARRIED**
> 
> _April 10_ _th_ _, 2007 – By Sparrow._
> 
> Everyone’s favourite Deputy Headmistress, Transfigurations professor, and Head of Gryffindor is getting married this weekend to the greatest flying instructor and my personal friend, Rolanda Hooch. Madame Hooch proposed to Professor McGonagall during last year’s Quidditch World Cup, in what eyewitnesses are calling ‘literally the cutest proposal ever’. Several Weasleys have supplied the editorial team with pictures of this event, some of which can be found below.
> 
> (Image description: From left to right; Hooch and McGonagall watching the match, Hooch and McGonagall kissing while the French team flies of the field, McGonagall holding up a bouquet of lavender while holding hands with Hooch)
> 
> The brides hereby invite all those who are interested in attending to a celebration at Hogwarts, this Saturday the 14th of May. ‘There will be music and joy’ so quotes the invite. If you wish to gift the brides anything, please consider a donation in their name to one of the following organizations.
> 
> The Sirius Black Home for Orphaned Magical Children
> 
> The Lily Evans Organization against Homelessness and Hunger
> 
> James Potter’s Quidditch Team for Spirited Children
> 
> The Rubeus Hagrid Foundation for Found Animals, Beasts, and Creatures
> 
> Lupins Fund for Education (formerly the Severus Snape Scholarship Fund)

####  **Epilogue**

“Don’t worry,” she tells Else, when she’s given many bags and two children.

“Enjoy,” Else says, which Minerva knows means she isn’t worried. She kisses Else on the cheek, and lets Suzie explain everything about the grounds and how they’re not to go to the forest to Léo, who is too young to remember their last visit.

At the top of the stairs they run into Harry, who radiates joy and contentment. Minerva leans over, rather theatrically, staring at his feet, without letting go of Léo’s hand. Suzie skipped ahead, but she knows where she’s going. Harry looks at his feet too, and then back up at Minerva, the confusion on his face doing nothing to dim his grin.

“Checking if you’re actually floating,” she explains, and his grin stretches impossibly wider. He rushes over for a hug, makes a bird appear and fly around for Léo, then turns around when the stairs to the headmaster’s tower click. “Go on,” Minerva says, “don’t make him wait any longer.”

She tells Rolanda about it while the children are sitting at the coffee table, glueing things on top of other things, while liberally applying glitter to them. They’ve decided not to interfere with the art and share a mug of tea instead.

“Took them long enough,” Rolanda says, and Minerva hums, and then they both laugh. “Horrid,” Rolanda complains. “We’re gossiping old hags now, look what you’ve done to me.” But her eyes are shining and she’s grinning, and Minerva would do this every day for the rest of her life for a chance of Ro looking at her, just like that.

“Sure, love,” she says, instead.

Much as Severus has struggled with his position as headmaster, there is one thing he has not been shy about, and it is reforms he deemed necessary. Since the end of the war, Severus has started hiring more professors to help with the workload, and to prepare for the inevitable flood of students arriving eleven years or so after the war. Unlike before, when the castle would be hollow and empty during school holidays, now when the students aren’t around, the castles brims with professors and their visitors instead. Those who stay behind in the castle set up a long table in the middle of the Great Hall instead of using the house tables, and meet there for meals. Today, however, it is summer, and the sun is warm.

The long table on the lawn is piled high with food, and children and adults are finding seats all around. Léo sticks close to Minerva and Rolanda, but Suzie just found out that Harry stole an egg from a dragon before, so she is sitting with him. Severus cuts her food for her, while she’s telling Harry and million-and-one facts about dragons, and Rolanda and Minerva realize at the same time, catching each other’s eyes over Léo’s head. Grinning.

Rolanda takes the children to bed, stopping Minerva’s protests that she’ll help with a hand on her shoulder, and when she comes back down, it’s to the sight of her wife tending to an enormous fire, skirts flapping in the wind, wrapped in what looks like one of Hagrid’s scarves. She feels the kind of overwhelming love that makes her fingers tingle, and runs over to pick her up, spin her around, and kiss her. When they let go, eyes shining at each other, Rolanda notices people staring. “Show’s over!” She laughs, which sets Minerva off laughing.

They hold hands while they chat with other people, passing a bottle of whiskey around, safe in the knowledge that the children are being watched over by house elves that can never quite help themselves but linger close to the youngest ones. Aurora starts singing at some point, and when Minerva gets tired of songs she doesn’t know, she goes off in loud Gaelic, to the hilarity of every involved. Pomona actually falls off of the log she’s sitting on when Rolanda joins in at some point.

It’s when Minerva is sitting on the ground between Rolanda’s legs, and Rolanda is playing with her hair, that she realizes she never quite thought she could be this happy. She thanks Hagrid for the conversation they’d been having, and tugs Minerva to her feet.

“Were you tired?” Minerva asks, leaning in, holding her hand tight, when they’re walking back to the castle after saying their goodbyes.

“I’m alright,” Rolanda promises, “didn’t want you to fall asleep in the wet grass.”

Minerva laughs, and tugs at her arm, “what were you talking to Hagrid about?”

They spend the rest of the walk up to their rooms catching each other up on the conversations they had all evening, and then check up on the children. Fast asleep.

“Ro?” Minerva whispers, standing in their dark sitting room.

“Yes?” Rolanda whispers back, still tidying away the toys and glitter the children had left all around.

“Do you want to just come to bed?” Minerva hisses, much closer now, already herding Rolanda in the direction of their bedroom.

“Sure, babe,” Rolanda laughs, and then they’re kissing. They close the door as quietly as they can, hold their breaths while Minerva sets up charms to make sure no children wake up and come knocking, and fall on the bed in a heap. “Get this off,” Rolanda pants, pulling at Minerva’s dress, “come on.”

“Needy,” Minerva tells her, doing as she’s told, tugging at Rolanda’s clothes with the same sense of urgency. “No patience whatsoever.”

Rolanda laughs and pushes Minerva, naked now, down into the mattress. Holds her wrists as she kisses up and down until Minerva screams that she takes it all back and please Ro please. Rolanda finds their harness, and slips it on so fast she nearly falls off the bed, then takes the time to really make very sure that Minerva is properly lubricated before slowly sliding home.

“Hurry up!” Minerva hisses, wriggling her hips. “Don’t make me tie you up and fuck myself on that thing.”

“You don’t have the stamina,” Rolanda teases, “and you damn well know it.” She grabs Minerva’s waist to hold her still, and sinks all the way in. “And don’t insult the Magnum Mega 3000 please.”

“Oh the Mega,” Minerva laughs, stifling gasps, eyes bright, when Rolanda starts to move. “Bit exaggerated don’t you think?”

“Mmm?” Rolanda hums back, rather focused on the way Minerva’s legs wrap around her back and the way it moves them both into a different position.

“I’ve seen bigger,” Minerva says, aiming for flat and unimpressed, totally failing by the high blush on her cheeks, her wet bitten lips. The little pants as Rolanda fucks the air out of her.

“You’ve – you’ve seen bigger!” Rolanda laughs, “well I’ve had tighter!”

Minerva cackles, and wriggles her arms free from where Rolanda was holding them still, wraps them around her neck. “You going to come like this?” She asks, and Rolanda nods her yes against the crook of her neck.

“You?” She breathes back, and Minerva nods too. “I’ll make it good then.” She snaps her hips, deep and hard and steady, until she can’t, twitches as she rides it out, then leans back to take the pressure off from where she is far too sensitive. Picks up her steady pounding while Minerva sneaks a hand between them, and then slows down to make it last, to properly enjoy the way it plays out on her face, first looking like pain, making her stomach quiver and her arms and legs shake, then like relief, as her body gently rocks with aftershocks. The way she slowly opens her eyes when she’s ready to see again.

Rolanda takes off the harness and throws it to the floor. Minerva half-asses some cleaning spells all around, seems surprised when their discarded clothes actually fold themselves, and then they crawl as close to each other as they can.

“Night Min,” Rolanda mumbles against a collarbone. Minerva draws the duvets up to keep them both warm. “I love you.”

“You too, Ro,” Minerva answers, quite a bit later, mostly asleep.

 


End file.
